Samantha Irvin Seeked More Than Just Ring Announcing in WWE

Samantha Irvin sought more from her WWE career than just being a ring announcer. In a recent in-depth interview on “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet,” her husband, Ricochet, discussed her departure and her desire for her role in announcing to serve as a gateway to a character-driven position.

Ricochet clarified that his own departure from WWE was unrelated to Samantha’s ambitions, saying, “No. She’s been talking about that for a while. Even before my stuff was up. I think it happened at WrestleMania (40). For her, announcing was only supposed to be the way into WWE. She, first and foremost, is a fan. She grew up with it. Her dad and brothers watched it. Of course, she’s a performer, so her time performing and traveling the world performing got her to a position to where Mark Henry found her and said, ‘This girl is amazing, we need her for something.’”

Reflecting on her early days as a ring announcer, Ricochet emphasized that Samantha always envisioned her role leading to something greater. “I think ring announcing was only supposed to be the way in. She wanted to be a character. That’s what she’s been her whole life. She’s been stage performing her whole life. Drama club, stage performing, traveling the world and doing stage performance. That’s what she hoped. Once WrestleMania happened, she was like, ‘That’s the highest I’m going to get.’ She’s a performer. It’s hard to explain. When you’re just a performer announcing, she’s getting hate because she said she didn’t enjoy announcing. She enjoyed making the WWE Universe feel emotions and using her voice to help promote and move the company forward. This is just my example, it’s like having Mariah Carey, but she’s just a ring announcer. At the end of the day, she loves and respects the position and loves and respects wrestling, but she wanted to be like Paul Heyman, a manager or something. I feel like she broke tradition, and I think that’s why people are upset. How long was Fink [Howard Finkel] doing it? Lilian (Garcia), Justin Roberts. The fact that she only did it for four years and she found out, ‘this isn’t what I was born to do. This isn’t what I love to do.’”