Michael Cole misses WWE Raw season premiere

Michael Cole was absent from this week’s Raw.

The longtime WWE announcer was notably absent from Monday’s season premiere of Raw, with Kevin Patrick taking his place. PWInsider reported on Monday that Cole missed the show due to a personal commitment, and had requested the time off “some time ago”, and will be back for next week’s episode.

“In asking around, we are told that Cole had requested this week off some time ago due to a personal commitment, and it just happened to land on what was later scheduled to be the Raw season premiere,” they wrote. “It is not an illness or anything similar.”

As part of their latest broadcasting reshuffle, Cole currently is an announcer for both Raw and SmackDown. Wade Barrett joins him on commentary for Raw, and the duo of Patrick and Corey Graves join him for SmackDown.

Cole has been doing commentary for WWE dating back to 1997. In a recent segment with Seth Rollins, Cole noted that he had only missed two events since joining the company 26 years ago.