54-year-old set to make a grand return to professional wrestling four years after leaving WWE

A 54-year-old veteran is set to return to the professional wrestling business. The person in question is the former play-by-play commentator of WWE SmackDown, Mauro Ranallo.

Ranallo signed with the Stamford-based company in 2015 and debuted as part of the SmackDown commentary team in January 2016. At the time, he was dubbed "The Voice of SmackDown." From 2017-2020, Ranallo worked as the lead commentator of NXT before announcing his departure from the company in August 2020.

Ranallo is set to return to professional wrestling as the voice of Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, a Canadian professional wrestling promotion owned by Scott D'Amore. During an interview with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, D'Amore confirmed the same.

"Mauro Ranallo has agreed to be the voice of Maple Leaf Pro. He’s the man. Mauro has passion for wrestling. I’m so stoked and so honored. The fact that he’s willing to say, 'Yeah, I want to be part of this,' to me, is unbelievable. He’s the man. He’s so good," Scott D'Amore said. [H/T Fightful]

What the future has in store for Ranallo in Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling remains to be seen.

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WWE Hall of Famer JBL addressed the allegations of him bullying Mauro Ranallo

WWE Hall of Famer JBL was accused of bullying by Mauro Ranallo. From July 2016 to March 2017, the duo worked together on SmackDown.

In April 2017, Ranallo parted ways with WWE after reports emerged about the former United States Champion allegedly bullying him.

While speaking on The Hannibal TV, the 57-year-old addressed the situation by saying:

"They [WWE producers] said, ‘Hey, there’s this internet poll that makes Mauro the number one announcer. Can you do something on that?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ So when we went on the show, I did a rant on the show about, ‘They’re calling Mauro the number one announcer? He’s retweeted it, blah, blah, blah.’ One hundred percent in character, and people talk about that poll that I was so jealous of that poll that I went on TV and talked about it. I didn’t know the poll existed until right before we went on the show. And that was me, I just assumed Mauro knew that that was something I had done in character."

It remains to be seen if Ranallo will return to the Stamford-based promotion somewhere down the line.