From the second he stepped onto our televisions in 1999, Johnathan “Coach” Coachman endeared himself to WWE fans everywhere.
He was charismatic and had a lot of fun, and that made us love him and the product even more, and now that he’s permanently closing that chapter of his life, he opened up on adfreeshows.com.
As with many in their post WWE lives have expressed, he was nostalgic and appreciative, but also hurt by some of the goings on behind the scenes that took away his desire to work in the wrestling business again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxQftDNvEw
Getting started
Coach started with the WWE in 1999 as an interviewer, commentator, and presenter.
This gave him the opportunity to work with the Rock in some memorable skits as well as others, and he eventually develop a close relationship with Vince McMahon.
He had a lot of fun his first few years in the WWE as he enjoyed the pre shows that helped set up the pay-per-views by getting us revved up.
This was obvious as his excitement came through our television screens and to be honest, he was why I hated to miss any PPVs. He just had that energy that made us want to watch everything.
Coach would eventually move into the ring as well as he was bigger than some of the talent and the optics didn’t sit well with McMahon.
As with most people in the business, he developed close friendships with some and one of those was Chris Benoit.
Benoit helped to train him to wrestle as well, which only made their bond stronger. So, when the tragedy happened, it really hurt Coach similar to how it had everyone that was close to Benoit.
How could it not?
Leaving and coming back
In 2008, he left the WWE to follow his dream to work at ESPN as he’s a sports reporter at heart, but he also wanted to get away to avoid the drugs, alcohol, and other things that had injured so many he’d worked with.
He returned to the WWE a decade later, but backstage politics caused him some headaches as he had other obligations that he was told wouldn’t be a problem but became one.
That didn’t stop him from helping to get the deal with ESPN moving despite reportedly being called at 3 AM by Kevin Dunn to help them grow the company’s reach as a favor.
In the end, he gave everything he could to the WWE, but the constant disrespect he was shown by various people as well as owing him thousands of dollars in unpaid travel expenses became too much.
Despite how things ended, he said he’s in a good place with his various sporting jobs and he really enjoyed meeting WWE fans and helping to entertain us.
He had plenty more to say, so check out the podcast.
Out of all of their announcers over the last 20 years, he’s one of the best and most memorable and we wish him nothing but the best.
Thank you for all you’ve done, Coach.
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