Adnan Virk On His Relationship To Nick Khan That Led To WWE RAW Commenter Role

On a recent episode of the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, Jimmy Traina sat down with Adnan Virk to talk about his new role as RAW play-by-play commentator. Virk detailed how he got hired by WWE.

"The way it went down was Nick Khan was my longtime agent at CAA, and of course, he's now the president of WWE. This is a relationship business, so you have a good relation with somebody, that means something," Virk noted. "And when Nick left, I spoke to him and thanked him for all he did for me and my family.

"I'll always be so grateful to Nick and his stewardship and mentorship, and I said something to the effect of, 'Hey, if there's anything for me, let me know.' And he was like, 'Yeah, okay, sure.' Never thinking it would come to fruition and my understanding is the WWE brain trust wanted a new voice, wanted something different, and Michael Cole, in addition to being the voice of SmackDown, is obviously a part of the brain trust.

"And he was talking with my agent Matt Olson, who in many ways is Nick's protégé and said, 'Okay, who's a guy on your roster you think might be able to do this.' He goes, 'What about Adnan?' That's intriguing. Has he done anything like this? So they sent some stuff. I had called boxing at DAZN etc., and then I went to the audition. It's one thing to say all there's mutual interest. It's another thing to actually get the job. I called a few matches, and everything seemed to work out. And when they actually called and said you got the job, I was floored."

Wrestling Inc. exclusively reported Virk's addition to the RAW commentary team during WrestleMania weekend. Virk revealed when he got hired by WWE and who he told.

"I told five people," Virk revealed. "I auditioned February 5. They told me end of February you got the job, but then I had to get MLB to sign off in March. That took some time. The quarantining. The vaccinations. I told my parents, my brother, my wife and one of my kids. I have four kids. I told one of them, 'You can't breathe a word to it.' In this business, that's pretty wild."

Virk was inserted into commentary straight away on the RAW after WrestleMania without any prior experience at pro wrestling commentary. Virk gave his thoughts on his debut happening so quickly and on a large stage.

"RAW after Mania is a huge deal. I'm of the opinion it's baptism by fire," Virk described. "I called a few matches off a monitor, but you're really only gonna learn it once you're in the chair. I can only watch other people doing it so much. So my thing is, kind of like a diet, it's not where you start it's where you finish. Suppose I had done a month of matches, that first night, it's still going to be bumpy.

"You're still going to make mistakes. You're only going to get better by doing it, so I could certainly understand it if they had said, 'Hey, listen, we want you to do something else first,' but at the same time, I respected the fact that they had confidence in me to say, 'Listen, you know what, go ahead and get this done.' And I should mention, I'm burying the lead here, the face that I'm with Corey Graves and Byron Saxton.

"When I knew I had those guys, okay, they're really putting me in a position to succeed. Graves is like [Kirk] Herbstreit. I worked with him, and I said, man, this guy, he can do play-by-play and he can do color. He's a former wrestler. He knows it. Byron same thing. He has all the elements of great broadcasting. So I said, okay, you know what, it is a big-time spot, but they're giving you a great team around you, Kevin done producing etc."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.