WWE RAW announcer Samantha Irvin recently appeared on an episode of Busted Open Radio, where she talked about a number of topics including advice she got from Michael Cole when she started as well as how she believes WWE Chairman Vince McMahon was happy with what she was doing.
Irvin said, “When I started, he was like, ‘Hey, go for it. I know we’re used to doing things a certain way, but if something comes over you and you wanna do it, just go for it.’ Luckily, a lot what I’ve thrown at the wall has stuck. I think, I don’t want to put words in Mr. McMahon’s mouth, but since he didn’t yell at me or anything, I think he was happy with what I was doing. I mean, I got called up and within two weeks I was in the ring doing Royal Rumble, two or three months later I was in the ring with him at WrestleMania. So, even though we never spoke, I took that as a sign that he was happy with what I was doing. I definitely got lucky with all of the factors that were at play when I started.”
Irvin also talked about how she got her start in WWE as a ring announcer.
“When I got the offer, Mark Henry called me and he was like, ‘Listen to the greats, listen to Fink, listen to the great announcers’ and I was like, ‘I’m already there, I’m listening and I’m ready.’ I think that it happened at a — it was a transition period. When I got hired, it was the end of the Thunderdome era. Pat McAfee was still on SmackDown, NXT was turning into NXT 2.0, so there were a lot of changes happening that I think I was kinda able to slide in and be a little crazy.”
You can check out the complete show at this link.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)