Renee Young is now a full-time RAW announcer

[smarkmouth]

From wwe.com

Starting tonight, Renee Young will be the first woman to join the Raw broadcast booth full-time.

She will now bring her unique voice and perspective to the longest-running weekly episodic program in the U.S. as she joins Michael Cole and Corey Graves at the commentary desk. Renee joined WWE in 2012 and has served as a backstage interviewer and commentator on Raw, SmackDown LIVE and NXT. She is currently part of the Mae Young Classic commentary team on WWE Network.

In turn, Jonathan Coachman will take over as the new host of WWEâ??s pay-per-view kickoff shows. A veteran broadcaster with more than 20 years of experience hosting shows for WWE, ESPN, MSG Network and the Golf Channel, Coachman will bring his unique style to millions of viewers around the world on WWE Network, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and WWE.com, as the host of WWEâ??s pay-per-view kickoff shows. Coachman will begin his new role this Sunday, Sept. 16 alongside WWE Hall of Famer Booker T, David Otunga, Sam Roberts and Peter Rosenberg prior to WWEâ??s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view event.

I'm glad they've already had her on a few times already, otherwise I don't know how happy I'd have been about this. In her brief stint as an NXT announcer, she just wasn't clicking for me, but her last few appearances on the commentary team have been strong in their own right AND a vast improvement over Coachman. I'm pleased about this.

[OYDK]

Renee Young's an investment, and a pretty good one for WWE if I do say so myself. She's new to commentary so I don't expect her to be very polished for a long while, but I have no doubt that in due time she'll knock this out of the park like she's done with every other assignment she's been given since arriving in WWE. Already I've been reading comments about how "awful" or "terrible" she is and I find myself thinking, "no wonder WWE never invests in the long game..." I mean, honestly what's the point when the current fanbase gets bored after less than a month of building something? Young's been a regular commentator on Raw for, what two weeks? And people are already tired of her. People have been bitching about Cole for 10 years now but also don't seem willing to give any new guys a chance either. There's also a part of me that thinks much of the fanbase won't accept a woman on commentary no matter who it is, but that's a discussion for another time.

At the end of the day, Renee Young has shown herself to be the most versatile, female non-wrestler in WWE history. If there was ever woman who I believe could make a legitimate career out of being a wrestling commentator, Renee Young would be it. But she'll need time. Something that, sadly, she likely won't be afforded in the current environment.

[Storm Trooper]

This is wonderful news all around.

Renee is good on commentary, and she seemingly has a good rapport with Cole and Graves (the opposite is true with Coach).

Coach will be good on the pre-show. He spent a decade at ESPN hosting Sportscenter, so he will be in his wheelhouse.

[jmt225]

Good for Renee. I like her a lot.

I just hope she can become more outspoken in the role and not be so agreeable all the time. It seems like 90% of the time all she says is "I agree" or "you're right about that."

It's like she's afraid to challenge Graves on anything that douchebag says. That needs to change. Hopefully with time she'll become more comfortable and won't let him continue to dictate her opinions.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

She's cool. I thought she did a solid job for the MYC.

[Jack-Hammer]

I like Renee Young. She's cute as a button, lively, energetic and is someone that I think can be a real asset over the long haul. I thought she did a really good job when she was part of the NXT commentary team years back before she got promoted to working the main roster almost exclusively conducting interviews and hosting ppv kickoff shows. She'll be more restricted on Raw as, to my knowledge, Triple H and the producers don't feed lines to NXT commentary team but does, at times, tell them some points to mention or focus on; I mean, it's nothing like having Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn screaming simultaneously in your headset. Michael Cole is able to sift through all the loudness and craziness coming from Vince or Dunn and can not only make coherent sense out of it but can do so and make it come off as effortless. That's the main reason why Cole is where he is and why Vince prefers commentators that are generally cut from the same cloth to be lead commentator for main roster shows.

[EnviousDominous]

Renee has been great as a host of Talking Smack. Play by play commentary is obviously a much more difficult beast.

I can sense that she's struggling to get acclimated, but I'm fully confident that she'll get there. I honestly think that she's having a hard time getting thoughts out there when working with chatter boxes like Michael Cole and Corey Graves who constantly play off of each other. I'm not hearing them asking her for an opinion on a storyline or set her up to one-up them with a comeback like they do with each other. I honestly think that Renee would benefit if Corey swapped with someone a little less snarky.

[Yaz]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't really enjoy her work at the NXT booth. She was fine as an interviewer and panel host, but commentary is a different beast and she struggled. I'm gonna withhold my judgement of her on Raw as she only has a couple shows, but she will need to improve from her NXT efforts.