Where In The World Is Mauro Ranallo?

I’ve been listening to Mauro Ranallo’s voice ever since he debuted on PRIDE Fighting Championships. I used to watch the shows with my best friend back in the day. He never forgave Mauro for replacing Stephen Quadros. I feel if Mauro had managed to appear on an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger he would have won him over.

He certainly has a unique vocal style, one that’s carried him to other MMA promotions, boxing, and professional wrestling. Wrestling is where Mauro got his start, as he debuted on television as a wrestling announcer before he was twenty years old. He eventually made his way back into the business when AXS TV hired him for their New Japan Pro Wrestling show, and eventually WWE took notice due to his work there & on boxing telecasts for Showtime.

Mauro keeps a busy schedule these days. In addition to his WWE duties he continues his work on boxing for Showtime, kickboxing for Spike TV & various podcasts. He’s also a self-described mental health advocate and does a lot of charity work. Not to mention a frequent tweeter and re-tweeter. JBL makes fun of him for it on television but it’s true.

He’s been strangely quiet lately, though. No tweets since before the March 14 episode of SmackDown Live, which is extremely out of character for him.

Ranallo missed the March 14 episode of SmackDown due to weather. This got quite the brushback from veterans of the wrestling business, specifically wrestling announcers. Josh Mathews & Taz were outspoken about it on Twitter, Taz even talked about it on his radio show. JBL also took shots at Mauro for being absent. Nobody missed the show due to the weather except for Mauro, so it seemed like fair game for people to rip him for it. Tom Phillips & JBL did the show in a rare two-man booth, as David Otunga was off to do a movie.

Fans, for the most part, were more forgiving of Mauro than people in the business were. Let’s face it, people in the wrestling business have a different perspective on these things than we do. They believe in making every show, no matter what. Rain, snow, sleet, whatever. If you’re breathing, you should be making towns. Fans are more willing to forgive people for missing shows. Mauro’s fans are also more aware of his situation than a lot of people in the business not associated with him or WWE would be.

Mauro has bipolar disorder. He’s been outspoken about it over the years, and does a lot of work for charity to raise money to hopefully someday find a cure, or make it more manageable for people. The thing about bipolar is that sometimes you’re doing great & being very productive, and sometimes you’re not. Medication helps, but there isn’t a known cure.

You can kind of see it in his announcing. He’s very excitable. It’s part of what’s made him successful over the years as a commentator. He’s usually very happy whenever he’s on television and always seems enthralled by whatever he’s calling. Even the most boring fights or bad wrestling matches don’t seem to get Mauro down. What we don’t see or hear are the down periods Mauro has to have.

I have to admit that when Mauro got hired by WWE I was of two minds of the situation. Part of me was happy, because I’d heard him on various shows over the years and thought he would be a good addition to WWE. But part of me also wondered how he would be able to work there, and if he would last very long. Announcing for WWE isn’t the easiest job in the world. Vince McMahon is one of the most demanding bosses anybody could ever have, especially when it comes to the announcers. Mick Foley told us about the voice in the headset and how he couldn’t take it anymore after a few months. I wondered how Mauro would be able to take it. Would he be able to deal with Vince’s constant criticizing?

You had to know something was up when Tom Phillips joined Mauro, JBL & Otunga at the table not long after the brand split. Most of us were extremely confused by that development…three-man booths are hard enough to do properly, but adding a fourth sounded like pure lunacy. As it ended up, Tom didn’t speak a whole lot. He did most of the between match stuff while Mauro, JBL & Otunga would call the matches. Which would naturally make one wonder why they even bothered having Tom out there. Couldn’t Mauro, as the play by play announcer, handle the between match stuff? That’s how it’s been done at least as long as I’ve been watching wrestling, going back to 1990.

Tom’s a talented guy. I’ve enjoyed his work on NXT alongside Corey Graves and he’s got as good a chance as anybody to take Michael Cole’s spot on top of the announcer food chain when Cole steps backstage. He’s got a good voice. As Jay Briscoe would say, he’s cosmetically pleasing. He’s been taught well in the ways of WWE. I wouldn’t deny him a spot on one of the top two WWE shows at this point.

The fact that he’s there means that the brass probably isn’t 100% sold on Mauro Ranallo. They didn’t send Tom over to Raw to relieve Michael Cole of the between-show duties. He’s there for a reason…if or when Mauro disappears, Tom Phillips will be the voice of SmackDown Live. It is what it is. Tom’s not trying to take the man’s job or anything like that, he hasn’t been jumping on Mauro’s calls & trying to get himself over. He’s been doing what his boss tells him to do. Which will serve him well.

As Taz pointed out on his radio show, the fact Tom Phillips was already there waiting to take the job was the #1 reason for Mauro to be on his A game, and the #1 reason to not give WWE a reason to let him go.

The fact that Mauro has bipolar disorder makes me worry.

The wrestling death that sticks with me more than any other is the death of Larry Sweeney. Alex Whybrow was his real name. He was a man that had the charisma that should have been showcased on a main stage. He should have been a star and should have made millions of dollars. He didn’t have the height or weight, but he had more charisma than anybody I can think of in this era. He broke in in CHIKARA and got popular enough in other promotions that he could break out.

He was bipolar. And he couldn’t fight the demons. It sucks. For him, and for his fans that wanted him to break through on the main stage. For his friends that enjoyed the hell out of his company. As a casual independent wrestling fan, I saw the charisma in him and took a Sweeney for Mayor sign from Southern Kentucky and brought it to an ROH show in Dayton, Ohio for him. Because he was that kind of man.

My hope is that Mauro won’t go down a similar road and that his disappearance of late isn’t related to anything like that. I hope that I’m over-reacting based on previous experiences with people with bipolar disorder in the wrestling business, and that Mauro is really fine and his recent absence is nothing serious.

Depressive episodes typically last at least two weeks, according to the Internet. Hopefully, if Mauro’s going through something like that right now, he’ll be back at the booth soon and we won’t have to talk about it again. That seems like the best case scenario at this point. Regardless of how we feel about Mauro’s work, and most people seem to be very positive about it as he’s won multiple Wrestling Observer awards for it, we can all agree that we want nothing for the best for these folks in their personal lives.