Jonathan Coachman On Whether He'd Return To WWE, Past Issues With Company

Sports analyst and former WWE personality "The Coach" Jonathan Coachman is comfortable being out of professional wrestling after his two runs with the promotion. Coachman has mixed feelings about his former employer and remarked about whether he'd return on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet." 

"No, I do not want to go back," Coachman said, "I mean, I'm open to any discussion but, for example, somebody said, 'Aw, you were terrible in 2018,' when I went back after I had been at ESPN. There's two reasons for that: A) I listened to Vince [McMahon], mistake number one, because he wanted me to keep that credibility that I had at ESPN as a journalist, as a guy who did SportsCenter, instead of heel Coach, which was the best version of Coach."

According to Coachman, the second mistake was the three-man commentary team he was placed into at the time. The announcer claims he felt like an outsider working with Michael Cole and Cory Graves, and that the three-person set-up was too much. Furthermore, Coachman also recalled Graves not wanting to work with him, noting that they barely got to know each other.

"Coach" added that there were consequences for him attending pre-scheduled golfing events, despite being told by McMahon to maintain journalism credibility. Coachman has noticed that WWE now allows Pat McAfee to take an absence to do ESPN's "College GameDay" for several months. "I was like, 'Wait a second, I tried to do this five years ago. Now I'm not saying I'm on Pat McAfee's level, but it's just how the mindset has changed since Vince left."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Insight with Chris Van Vliet" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.