Dave LaGreca Talks Corey Graves - Mauro Ranallo Controversy, Seth Rollins Taking Shots At CM Punk

During NXT TakeOver: WarGames Corey Graves made some critical tweets of Mauro Ranallo's commentary. That prompted Ranallo who has struggled with mental illness, to delete his Twitter account and take some time off as he didn't appear at NXT last Wednesday. Ranallo is scheduled to return to the announce booth tonight.

Busted Open Radio host Dave LaGreca discussed the controversy when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.

"We really don't know [what happened]. Only Mauro can answer that," LaGreca said of Graves denying he had anything to do with Ranallo's deleted Twitter and absence. "To me it's like this: Nick, if you and I were doing a show together and I felt like you were taking too much airtime or your star was shining a little too bright, that's not a problem you have as it's something I have to adjust to.

"I think we can all agree that Mauro outshines. He is a big personality and his star shines bright. Is there enough room for a three-man booth on NXT? I don't know. If that's the case, and you from the outside are looking at that and saying that could be an issue, don't you think that's something that should be talked about in-house instead of on social media?

"I think going to social media on that may not be the right answer."

He added that if Graves had done this a week or two ago then they could have built on some announcer controversy, but it happened too late.

"Maybe it's something for [Graves'] podcast. Maybe he's trying to create controversy for his podcast," stated LaGreca. "Corey Graves has always been a stand-up guy to me ? he's been on the show a couple of times?I would hope that he doesn't have evil intent behind it and I don't think that's the case. But when it comes to social media, I think you have to think before you hit send. Maybe this is one of those cases."

Another controversy regarding a commentator is WWE Backstage's CM Punk getting called out by Seth Rollins. Rollins said that people would rather see Punk in a wrestling ring rather than sitting behind a desk in Los Angeles and seemingly planted the seeds for a possible feud if Punk were to return.

LaGreca discussed Rollins' comments and if he had any problem with them.

"Why not? I know he's an employee of FOX but he's on a WWE program," LaGreca said of Punk. "So, I think he's fair game. Are you happy CM Punk is back in the fold? Obviously, everyone should be. Do you like that he's going to be critical and give his opinion? Sounds great.

"But at some point I think everybody wants to see him back in the ring. Maybe this is that gateway to see him get back into the ring. That's what I wanna see. Do I love to see him as a talk show host? Sure, but I wanna see him back in the ring. He's healthy and it looks like he's starting to fall in love with pro wrestling again. Let's get him back in the ring."

He added that Bruno Sammartino, The Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan and so many others coming back that we thought wouldn't gives hope that Punk will do the same.

You know you've made it in the wrestling world when you get your own giant head that makes it way into the crowd at pro wrestling shows. LaGreca has gotten that treatment and actually went into the history of the giant heads in the crowd.

"The first time I ever saw it was at the 10-year anniversary party. I don't even know where they got the picture and someone made a big pop-up head," recalled LaGreca. "There's a big fan, his name is Rodney Garza. He was using that picture in gifs and pictures on social media. Then people started making fat heads of it and it was at The Garden at the ROH show. It pops up on Raw and at AEW shows. I guest refereed at a House of Hardcore show and someone had it and Bully brought it into the ring.

"I don't know the origin of it but I love it. I'm glad fans are passionate enough but I wish I came up with the idea as I could have made some money on it. But I'm just glad that it's become a thing. I'm a part of a thing, so it's awesome."

LaGreca talked about how one of the giant heads was on Dynamite recently and he was getting tweets about how he was distracting people while watching the show.

"It was funny that JR and Tony Schiavone were like, 'There's LaGreca's fathead in the audience.' JR said someone's gotta fat head and Schiavone said, 'Well, LaGreca really does have a fathead.' I was like wow because Schiavone and JR are commenting on my fathead. This is just bizarre but cool at the same time," stated LaGreca.

LaGreca can be heard on SiriusXM Fight Nation 156 every weekday from 9am-12pm EST as part of Busted Open Radio. His full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.