Report: Reason Behind Corey Graves' Tweet Revealed, How WWE Management Views The Mauro Ranallo Situation

During NXT TakeOver: WarGames, Corey Graves was critical of NXT announcer Mauro Ranallo online. The SmackDown announcer Tweeted: "Just for the record guys. I know you wouldn’t know it, but there’s actually a WWE Hall of Famer AND a former Ring of Honor Champion on commentary. I’d imagine they have a lot to offer."

Ranallo has since deleted his Twitter account and did not appear at Survivor Series or this week's episode of NXT.

While Graves did apologise for the tweet on his After The Bell podcast, the reason behind the tweet was possibly revealed.

Graves has been telling people within WWE that he was trying to start an angle with Ranallo. However, Ranallo had no idea of this.

Meltzer was sceptical of this explanation. He noted that if you were going to start an angle with NXT, you would surely target all three announcers.

WWE also considers Graves to be the babyface in the current saga, possibly even the victim due to the negative reaction online to the tweet.

For the avoidance of any doubt, here is what Meltzer penned:

"Graves later claimed according to reports elsewhere, as well as those in the company, that he was trying to just start an angle with Ranallo. Ranallo had no idea of this and usually if one would be starting an angle, you’d let the other guy know, especially given the track record. The starting the angle story didn’t come until days later, and a number of people have been very skeptical because of the idea if you were starting an angle brand vs. brand, you would not have tweeted it like that, in a sense you may have buried all three announcers, or been critical of an announcer for being a homer, but not made the specific comment he did."

Dave later added: "It was noted to me that logic would have had WWE management trying to reel him in after Ranallo left, but in the strange world of WWE, Graves was considered by many the babyface in the situation, and even the victim."