"Night 1" of WrestleMania was headlined by Sasha Banks defending the SmackDown Women's Championship against Bianca Belair. After the latter hit the KOD, she won the match via pinfall, but commentator Michael Cole was under the impression that Banks kicked out and botched the call.
Social media quickly piled on the mistake and accused him of ruining Belair's big moment. Corey Graves was there to correct him, of course, and during his After The Bell podcast, he shared his take on what went wrong and explained why it was an honest mistake on his colleague's part.
"If there’s anybody that’s truly unshakable, it’s [Michael] Cole," Graves explained. "Cole felt bad, he felt terrible but I can relate. I almost thought the same thing, from our vantage point, it was not crystal clear. I’m not making excuses cause it was what it is, it didn’t take anything away from the amazing moment, it was reality. It was a very genuine real reaction, take into consideration, yes we have the monitor, yes we have audio in our headphones, but we’re also in a stadium full of 20,000 people."
"Any wrestler’s book that you have ever read says being in a stadium is very different than an arena because it takes a second, the sound has to leave and come back before anybody can truly register. I myself, wasn’t sure," Graves continued. "Hey, it’s the main event of WrestleMania, people have kicked out of each others finishers 35 times already tonight, why wouldn’t this be any different? It was a genuine shock after that so everyone, leave Michael Cole alone."
It was an honest mistake, and these things do happen. It's obviously a shame Cole couldn't call Belair's big moment in a way that really celebrated her victory, but he clearly felt bad about it. During the Show of Shows, he frequently put over the fact that two Black women were main eventing WrestleMania, and social media definitely made a bigger deal of this than was probably necessary.
What do you guys think?