After increasingly dipping his toe into the professional wrestling world since midway through the last decade, Pat McAfee officially jumped off the deep end in 2021, when he signed on the dotted line to become the new color commentator for SmackDown alongside the “(New) Voice of WWE,” Michael Cole, replacing Corey Graves on the Blue Brand.

While the reviews were mixed, as McAfee knew the names of about a dozen wrestling moves and came with the same, shall we say, boisterous energy that mas made him such a polarizing personality on ESPN, one person who was distinctly disadvantaged by the addition of the former All-Pro punter was Graves himself, as he was shipped to USA Network to be the lead commentator on RAW.

Discussing this move with Kurt Angle on his podcast, Graves admitted that he was hurt by the move and, as a result, has developed a professional rivalry with the ESPN host whenever they're on television together.

“I think the world of Pat. He, again, is such a strong persona — it's easy for me to play off of and rib him and get under his skin. I was a little upset professionally that I found out, like, ‘Hey, you're going from Friday Night SmackDown on FOX, the network show that you kicked off with Michael Cole…' I took it a little personally, not because of Pat, but it was sort of like, ‘I've paid my dues here. I'm the guy that shows up week after week. I'm the guy that did both RAW and SmackDown for two years straight, never complained, and this is how you do me?'” Corey Graves told Kurt Angle via Wrestling Inc.

“(Carmella) talked me off a ledge, and I had a few conversations with Cole. Michael Cole is my boss/therapist. So, he talked me off the ledge as well, and looking back, you know, it's business… It was a shock that I didn't see coming but, you know what? I dealt with it. We're all better off for it, I think.”

Fortunately for Graves, his move worked out pretty well, as he was still afforded a chance to call major Premium Live Events alongside Cole and found additional life as the host of After The Bell, where he's earned a new fanbase while drawing interesting insight out of some of the best Superstars in the sport today. With Graves now reunited with Cole on SmackDown, it's safe to say nothing in WWE lasts forever.

Corey Graves reflects on his relationship with Brodie Lee.

Elsewhere in his appearances on the Kurt Angle Podcast, Corey Graves was asked about his relationship with the late, great Brodie Lee, aka the man known to the WWE Universe as Luke Harper.

Though Graves didn't have a strong on-screen relationship with Lee during their time together in WWE, the duo spent a ton of time together during their time together in WWE developmental, where they learned the ropes much like their time together on the road on the indies, forming a bond they would last forever.

“Man, you would be hard-pressed to find two better dudes in the business in the world. Brodie, I knew when he was sort of breaking in in the Buffalo area. He’s from Rochester originally, and I would do independent shows and run into him all the time, and he was just always so happy go-lucky. And to look at him and then to know him, I mean, you got to know him a little bit, right? When you look at him, you think, ‘Oh my God, this hillbilly is going to attack me. He’s this psychopath.’ And then you get to talk to him, and you realize he was the most down-to-earth normal, just sort of nerdy guy,” Corey Graves said via 411 Mania.

“I mean, we just would laugh and joke, and we had these running gags in developmental where I would just try to — I would up my level of misery. I would be like, ‘Hey, Brodie, what are the odds? You take that weight rack over there, and you just tip it over, and I’ll get a couple of weeks off,’ and he’d go, ‘No,’ I’m absolutely like, ‘He didn’t find the humor in it.’ It was just gallows humor, but I remember when we first were in together, he and his family very early on came over to my family’s house for Thanksgiving because we were all the island of misfit toys. None of us had any family nearby. We were all from everywhere around the globe. And just just his laugh and his smile. And John was just such a sweetheart of a human being. It’s still surreal that he’s gone.”

Between Lee and his fellow Wyatt Family member, Windham Rotunda, Graves has witnessed multiple members of his developmental class passing away suddenly and shockingly. Learning these stories about Lee and Wyatt now is a nice way to strengthen their legacy and peel back the curtains ever so slightly for fans to get to know who they were behind the gimmick.