Corey Graves once again talks about a potential return to the squared circle and opens up about what advice he would give a young version of himself.
Corey Graves is a regular part of WWE television. However, being the color commentator on Monday Night Raw is not something Corey had in mind when he was rising through the ranks of the independents as Sterling James Keenan. Recently, Corey Graves was cleared to return to the ring and has stated on many occasions that he is open to returning if the move is the right one for himself and for the story.
Now, he is rewriting that he may never actually return to the ring if the right circumstances are never presented to him.
“There are no plans. I mean, I'm not going to spoil anything,” Corey said in a new interview with The Illuminerdi. “I don't have any sort of like immediate goals to accomplish. It was just something that I've wanted to do and I've accomplished so much in this role as a commentator, which is a role I never in a million years expected to have in the first place. So now I'm like, 'Okay, I feel like I've got the commentary thing down. Now, what else can I do?' I'm constantly -- I mean, behind the scenes trying to learn and learn the business side of the wrestling business. I always want to have irons in different fires, just because otherwise I feel like when I get complacent, I get bored. I just keep thinking to myself, that is the one thing that I was right there. I was right at the peak. I fell down the mountain and now it's like, wait, I can get medically cleared. Maybe get myself back into shape, which has been the hardest part. Because I really enjoy sitting and sitting ringside not having to do that. Yeah. But it's just always that what if and this is a what-if that I think I can potentially answer instead of having to wonder forever. So, it may happen six months from now, it may happen next year, or it may not happen at all, but I'm just trying to get myself physically and mentally into the best shape possible for whatever the world may have waiting for me.”
Seeing as his journey has taken so many different twists and turns, Corey Graves was asked what advice he would give to a young Sterling James Keenan and he said the biggest advice he could give to his past self is slow down.
“Slow down,” he said. “Slow down. All the madness that I experienced on the indies prior to arriving in WWE? I wouldn't have changed for the world. Stylistically speaking, [I would have changed] a little bit. I would have taken a little bit better care of myself. I felt like I was invincible. If I got a concussion? ‘That's no big deal, I'll be fine.’ Well, no, you need to take the week off. ‘What do you mean, I need to take the week off, I'm fine.’ I was so driven and goal-oriented that I had blinders on. The only thing I could focus on was making it to WWE, and I was right there. I think in hindsight if I had slowed down a little bit, taken a little bit better care of myself physically and mentally, maybe I wouldn't have hit that roadblock when I did. Not to say it wouldn't have come another year or two down the road, but at that time, I was burning the candle at both ends constantly. I was training trying to balance everything. Trying to make it and I think, a little bit older, wiser version of me, I would just tell myself to slow down and take it easy, because as we can see, I eventually got here in some capacity.”
Corey Graves and Carmella were recently married and also had a reality show miniseries called Corey and Carmella on WWE’s YouTube channel. You can see the series here.
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