Former WWE and XFL announcer Jonathan Coachman has moved on from working in pro wrestling.
Coachman in an interview with Chris Van Vliet this week was asked what the chances were that WWE fans would see the “Coach” character/announcer on TV again, and Coachman said there was no chance.
“Won’t ever happen,” he said.
Jonathan Coachman had two stints with WWE. The first from 1999-2008, where he went from a backstage interviewer to doing some in-ring spots and providing color commentary.
The second stint was from 2018-2021 where he was on the Raw commentary team before moving to hosting pre-show coverage at pay-per-view events. Coachman knew when he came back the second time it was under different circumstances. His run at ESPN had ended, and he was preparing to move out to California to start the next chapter of his career and life. WWE wasn’t a perfect fit, but it was a fit.
“It was fun, but the people I worked with on the shows, I don’t know what it was but they didn’t really want me to be there,” he said.
When Vince McMahon re-launched the XFL in 2020, he needed someone he trusted to lead studio coverage for the initial return and turned to Coach. Coachman took on the XFL opportunity not thinking twice about what would come next.
“I trusted Vince implicitly,” he said. “Like I’ve done so much for him, with him, everybody knows that.”
When COVID hit – completely derailing the XFL – and Coach got a large check for his TV work, the check bounced. When he tried to get WWE to get it sorted out, he got ghosted by an executive with ties to Vince. Coachman said the executive told him to take his issue up with the XFL and not WWE. Coachman didn’t think it mattered much since McMahon was the owner of both at the time. He figured Vince could make it right, but nothing materialized.
Jonathan Coachman just felt like after all he had given to WWE and to Vince for those years, it was just supremely disrespectful how his issue with that money was handled. He said it wasn’t about the money, but the process and how he was dismissed.
“That to me was a complete slap in the face,” Coachman said. “But some people there just don’t care. And I’m not gonna name names, it’s not my style. But even to this day…there are certain people, and they’re usually the ones that get the biggest bonuses, that do not care what happens below them.”
“I had literally done everything I had ever been asked to do, and this is how you’re gonna treat me?” he added. “And literally they didn’t care. They did not care.”
