Samantha Irvin’s unexpected departure from WWE in October surprised many, but it turns out she had aspirations beyond ring announcing.
During an interview on Busted Open Radio, Irvin shared that she explored various roles in WWE, with Michael Hayes being the only person who asked about her dream position. She revealed that she once pitched the idea of becoming a referee, but it was quickly dismissed. Before landing the ring announcer job, she had been interviewing for another department within WWE.
Now, she envisions a backstage career, possibly in writing or creative, drawing inspiration from figures like Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff.
Here’s what she said:
“Um, no (I was not asked what my dream role in wrestling was). The only person that spoke to me about it was Michael Hayes. He did say — he’s like, ‘You wanna learn everything don’t ya?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah’ and he said, ‘You wanna book? You wanna be a booker?’ And I was like, ‘I wanna learn everything.’
So he definitely saw that in me, because I was always just… around. Just observing. Now I think my dream role is different because when I first came into it, I wanted to do everything. I mean, at one point, I asked if I could referee, and they were like, ‘No!’
But now that the ring announcing got so popular, I kind of can’t do certain things now. The truth is that I would have loved to try every single thing. That’s the truth. But really, I would like to write and when I got the job, I was actually interviewing with another department at WWE.
I was on an interview with another department in WWE when the announce team called me and said, ‘Are you interviewing with another department?’ And I said, ‘Yeah’ and they said, ‘We wanna offer you a job’ and I was like, ‘Okay!’ And then I finished up but then I accepted that job so I wanna be an old lady, an old, smart lady who knows everything and makes sh*t happen. That’s it.
However the journey happens. But Paul Heyman is absolutely a big inspiration to me. I really admire what Eric Bischoff was able to do at WCW and he got things popping off. I like risk-takers.“
