Rich Brennan Talks Departure, Thoughts on the Brand Split, More

– Rich Brennan spoke with Wrestling Inc about his WWE release and more. Some highlights are below:

On the new main roster debuts from NXT: “I can only speak for a little while after WrestleMania, I’ve been on a wrestling sabbatical. Enzo and Cass naturally draw a reaction, they’re easy to love or easy to hate. Enzo being the main guy in that. The second he talks, he draws a reaction. The Vaudevillains – I love those guys. It was hard to tell what there story was and who are they. In NXT, we saw their story and what they’re about, but there’s a whole group of people wondering why they look like strongmen. Are they from a different time? Are they hipsters? What’s their deal. They’re both great guys, excellent in the ring, excellent characters, but a lot of it goes back to how they’re presented.”

On what WWE told him about his role after Mauro Ranallo came in: “They told me to just keep doing what I was doing, that I was part of the future. They told me I’d done what I’d asked, and to not look at it as a demotion, that Mauro was a known commodity in the sports business. They wanted to make a splash going to the USA Network. I understood bringing in Mauro, it made sense. I didn’t want to be taken off Smackdown, but I understood it. I was told to keep doing what I was doing, and there was plenty of work for everyone.”

On Kyle Edwards and Alex Reyes being cut at the same time he was: “It was surprising, yes, but they brought in a bunch of new people at once. It seems like they want what they want on any given day, and that can change day-to-day, hour-to-hour. At one point if I was part of the future and something happened to change their minds, that’s not my decision to make. I can be thankful for my time there and upset that it ended before I wanted it to. I treated people with respect, I was on time, I did a good job, I tried to be as accurate as I could be. I can hold my head up high and look myself in the mirror and say I did the best that I could. Whatever caused that change – a change in direction, announcing style – Cole isn’t going anywhere, older white guy with glasses. Ranallo isn’t going anywhere, older white guy with glasses. What do we do with Brennan? We have three old white guys with glasses (laughs), I don’t know. Maybe my style of calling things isn’t what they want. I’m trying to look forward to what comes next, and be thankful I had the opportunity to live an offbeat dream. I choose to focus on the positives, not the negatives.”

On if he was able to keep up with other wrestling outside of WWE: “Not at all. When you’re in that grind, just the TV grind, the announcers fly out on Sunday, get into town Monday, then you’re driving yourself from town to town. If you’re lucky an hour, if you’re not lucky, six hours. There’s not a lot of time to watch other stuff. I tried to keep up and on Twitter, but honestly it’s hard to do that with the schedule, especially as an announcer. You’re trying to make sense of 20 storylines as it is. You’re having a tough enough time following your own product.”

On whether the brand split is a good idea: “It could be. It’s like anything in wrestling – what happens creatively? I hope it’s successful, I hope it’s cool. Not knowing where it’s going, it has the potential to be cool or not so. I’m trying not to be too political, but I don’t know. Do you raid NXT? Maybe, but then you kill what NXT is.”