Aside from performance in the ring, voice is a major component needed to succeed in wrestling. One word and the crowd instantly knows who it is, cheers and waits in anticipation. Think of the best to ever grace the industry: they all knew how to captivate an audience on the mic.
It’s even harder to do as a ring announcer. It can get stale just announcing names. There’s legends like Howard Finkle and Lilian Garcia, who pioneered the roles and are seen as the gold standards of commanding the microphone. Just like in the ring, it takes immense talent to stand out.
That’s what made Samantha Irvin this generation’s icon.
It was a funny rise to stardom.
Irvin didn’t attempt to become a WWE ring announcer. In fact, she had never done any announcing. She was a career musician attempting to become a wrestler. But in 2021, she was offered the mic. Little did the wrestling world know what would happen next.
“When they told me that I was going to ring announce, I said ‘OK, well, I’m gonna go so hard doing this,’” she told USA TODAY Sports.
Go hard she did. Irvin started at the developmental level before she catapulted herself onto ‘Friday Night SmackDown’ and ‘Monday Night Raw,’ stealing the show and becoming a fan favorite along the way. Whether it was the way she fabulously said Chelsea’s Green name, brought intensity when announcing Roman Reigns and The Bloodline or upped the big-match feel in title bouts, Irvin earned praise and became a voice people looked forward to hearing.
When it felt like her popularity couldn’t rise anymore, she put on a masterclass performance at WrestleMania 40. She announced both nights and her work was highly acclaimed, earning applause from one of the best in the business in Michael Buffer. She cemented herself among the greatest to do it.
But, six months later, she departed WWE, shocking fans that fell in love with her voice. It felt sudden, but according to her, it was needed. Now, nearly four months after leaving wrestling, she is starting her next chapter – now as Samantha The Bomb. Back in music form, she’s hoping those that fell in love with her in WWE will follow her as she taps into her singing career.
Because she’s far from showing the world all she can do.
“I feel creatively free right now,” Samantha said. “It’s a beautiful feeling.”
An epic WrestleMania performance
One thing Samantha desired during her WWE career was she wanted to be like the fans, not knowing what would transpire. She grew up a wrestling fan, and wanted to still have that raw feeling of finding out results in real time.
“You can’t shake 30-some years of fandom,” she said.
So it makes complete sense why Samantha had an emotional reaction to Cody Rhodes winning the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 40. She was able to announce him as the winner, but she fought off tears getting it out in what became a viral clip.
What’s funny is the tears actually started before the bell rang. It was a different bell that started it; the classic gong sound of The Undertaker’s entrance music – which sent Lincoln Financial Field into a frenzy – was when the emotions began to pour out for Samantha. She wasn’t just Samantha Irvin; she was the child that went to WrestleMania 14 and fell in love with the profession. When Rhodes emerged victorious, it was the cherry on top.
“I felt so terrible in the moment that I couldn’t get the announcement off,” Samantha said. “I felt so bad. I was apologizing to people around me.”
No one was mad at Samantha. She recalled the commentary team of Michael Cole and Corey Graves telling her not to apologize. Backstage, The Rock thanked her for her passion and The Undertaker – the one responsible for the tears – told her he appreciated what she brings to the business.
With that epic performance, it was clear why Garcia, when she returned to WWE one month later, gave a symbolic passing of the torch to Samantha.
“Being in the ring with Lilian Garcia, I mean, that was like the ultimate co-sign,” Samantha said. “I felt that I could be proud of the job that I had done with that role to that point.”
Why did Samantha Irvin leave WWE?
As Samantha puts it: “touring is hard.”
Being on the road and consistently announcing names was unrealistic for her. Her voice was getting tired, and singing was starting to take a back seat.
“It just became more and more sad as time went on, because it’s like, ‘Wow, am I just not a singer anymore? Like, what am I doing?’” she said. “I know that I am a performer and being a ring announcer on WWE, it was the performance of a lifetime. But then when people stopped calling me for singing gigs, and now they’re asking me to announce everything, I said, ‘Oh no, I took it too far.’
“I was like, man, like, this cannot be forever,” Samantha added.
Samantha left WWE in October, but there were no hard feelings with the company. She saw her time in WWE as giving her an audience that cared about her, and the space to show her creativity in front of millions of fans around the globe. She doesn’t feel like she is working just to support herself and has the freedom to do what she wants, rather than what she has to do.
“I didn’t leave WWE to necessarily pursue anything specific. I just knew that I’m not a ring announcer, and I knew that if I continued going any longer, that was it. It was done. I could kiss any other thing that I wanted to do goodbye,” she said. “I just need to be myself. That’s literally it.”
Starting the next chapter
Samantha has found what’s next. It’s going back to her roots: making music.
Years ago, she wrote songs, but it was put on hold when she started ring announcing. After leaving WWE, she went back to those songs and retrained her voice to get back to singing. She announced she will be releasing her first song on Feb. 14, titled “Make Me.”
Samantha describes the song as a “personal little love letter to everyone.” She wrote and recorded the song on her own, and she plans to release more music in the future. When more songs are released, she believes fans will start to view her as her actual self, rather than just as a ring announcer.
She developed quite the fanbase in wrestling. She’s hopeful it will follow her into this next chapter. As she said, “let me cook.”
“Hopefully the fans that were touched by my vocal performance in WWE will give the music and everything else I do a chance, because it’s the same thing that I’ve always done, and everything that I do, I try to pour as much emotion into it and make people feel something,” she said.
The confidence in making music was heavily influenced from WWE having her back. She recalled a conversation she had with chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque when he told her the company believed she was a star.
“For them to look at me and see something in me, it actually made me say ‘I got to show what I can really do,’ ” Samantha said.
And for those missing her role in wrestling, don’t worry: she insists she’ll come back to the profession at some point.
“That’s a guarantee. My wrestling career has barely even begun,” she said. “I think it would be an absolute waste of everything that I’ve done so far to not continue the story. I gotta finish my story.”
It’s anyone’s guess as to when – and how – Samantha would come back to wrestling. It’s unlikely she’d want to return as a ring announcer. Her fiancé, Ricochet, is currently in AEW, and she mentioned she can’t wait to work with him in the future, just like they did in WWE.
But for now, Samantha is ready to launch her music career, and showcase how much she has to offer.
“Now, I want to just see creatively what else I can do,” she said. “Hopefully, when I come back (to wrestling), I’ll bring even more value than I did before.”