– Mike McMahon reported on The Wrestle Blog site that new WWE ring announcer Lauren Mayhew was pulled from the SmackDown tapings in Boston this past Tuesday night after announcing the opening dark match and apparently messing up. The story goes that she was scolded at ringside by a WWE crew member and fellow announcer Josh Matthews. She left to go to the backstage area and returned later that night to sit at ringside and take notes while Matthews did the announcing.
Mayhew’s management company, Lupo Entertainment, contacted Mike with the following statement after his post: “Lauren was not “pulled” from the card. This week, Lauren was only scheduled to sing the anthem and work the dark match. Her situation is not unlike a new wrestler to the company who performs dark matches for a couple weeks until learning the WWE way of doing things.”
Here’s part of what Mike originally wrote:
Mayhew was introduced by Justin Roberts to sing the national anthem and gave the announcements for the opening contest – a dark match that saw Mike Knox pin Jimmy Wang Yang – but was seemingly pulled from the card after some miscues during those announces.
Mayhew got her facts right, but seemed awfully hesitant and near confused while making the announcements, not to mention she was making them at the wrong time.
During the Knox-Wang Yang match, WWE production staff was visibly scolding her, or at the very least aggressively telling her what to do. I wasn’t privy to the conversation, but it seemed from some body language that some production staff was trying to get the point across that Mayhew should not start her announcements until the staff points her (her cue) to go.
After the match, Mayhew went backstage and Matthews announced the rest of the night, including Smackdown. Mayhew came back to ringside after a while and was seated next to Matthews with a notebook the entire show.
