Michael Cole & Corey Graves To Be The New WWE SmackDown Commentary Team

It has been confirmed that Michael Cole and Corey Graves will be the commentary team for Friday Night SmackDown when WWE's blue brand returns to the USA Network in September.

SmackDown will wrap up on Fox in early September, with SmackDown heading to the USA Network from the September 13 episode. It had already been confirmed that Michael Cole would be on play-by-play but it was revealed during the August 26 episode of Monday Night Raw that Cole will be joined by Corey Graves, his long-time on-off broadcast partner. 

Joe Tessitore will be the play-by-play announcer on Raw from Monday, September 2. It is unknown who will partner Tessitore on Raw but options include having Corey Graves work both Raw and SmackDown or simply pairing Tessitore with Wade Barrett. 

The new commentary teams will only be temporary, however. Michael Cole will move back to Raw in January for the move to Netflix, while Joe Tessitore will be switched to SmackDown. 

Monday Night Raw will move to Netflix as part of a 10-year deal worth $5 billion. All of WWE's programming will air on Netflix in the United Kingdom, including Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and pay-per-views.