Mike Rome Knew Samantha Irvin Would Be An Announcing Star Once She Found Her Groove

With her versatile inflections and wide range of pitch, Samantha Irvin's performance as a ring announcer has heaped much praise from the WWE Universe. Of course, Irvin's transition to ring announcing didn't come easy though.

In a recent appearance on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet," Mike Rome, the current ring announcer for "WWE Raw," spoke about the process of training Irvin for the main roster after her stints on "NXT" and "205 Live." Rome noted it wasn't her voice that needed coaching, as Irvin was well-regarded for her singing performances on season 10 of "America's Got Talent," but Irvin needed to tie her vocal skills in with the live television aspect of WWE.

"When she first started, obviously it's the same for all of us, we're very like, 'Okay, I'm going to get in and get out,' because there are times, especially on a 'Raw' where we'll start out and we'll do an announcement but you throw to an AR graphic, then we go to commercial, which means you have ten seconds to get that announcement...So there's a lot of ins and outs," Rome explained.

Once Irvin gradually found her groove, Rome knew she would be a star on the microphone. "Once you get comfortable and you start like, 'whatever,' then she started letting loose. I was like, 'Go, get it, get after it. Let's go.' She's awesome, dude. I was so excited for her."

Upon the completion of her training, Irvin was officially assigned to the "SmackDown" brand, which happened to be the home of her long-time partner, Ricochet.