Michael Cole Reveals When He Hopes To Retire From WWE, His Personal Life and More

During an interview with Sports Media with Richard Richard Deitsch podcast, WWE veteran broadcaster Michael Cole reveled he will be calling both nights of WrestleMania 39 this weekend and also commented on the Bloodline storyline, surviving 26 years in WWE and his life outside of the company and when he might retire.

On The Bloodline storyline:

"It's incredible. This story is the best story that I've been involved in for 26 years, bar none, for so many different reasons. You know, when I made that comment about this story should win an Emmy and I got laughed at by a lot of people, I'll say it again today on your show that this story deserves an Emmy, or at least a nomination. Yeah, we're wrestling, right? We're sports entertainment. You know, we're a joke to a lot of people within the Hollywood world, but it's about time that the work that we do in our company is recognized on that level. We're doing episodic television. We're doing live episodic television 52 weeks a year. You know, we're not doing a nine episode, Last of Us, which now goes on hiatus for a year and a half or two years until they do their next nine episodes. We're doing compelling episodic television every single week. So everyone from Paul Levesque, to the people on the creative writing team, to the superstar/actors are involved, they all deserve recognition for this, because this has been an incredible story that's been going on for almost three years. Think about that. Three years. That's 52 weeks a year for three years. We have delivered compelling television that hasn't gotten boring, that has had twists and turns that you can put up against any television show on the planet right now. People to this day come Sunday night still don't know how this is going to end. They don't. You can make an argument for both Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes to win that matchup, so we still don't know how it's going to end."

"Then you look at the players involved. Roman Reigns is operating on a level that I've never seen anyone in the history of the company operate on from a standpoint of his in-ring work to his acting ability. Paul Heyman is a first ballot Hall of Famer not only in our business, but in entertainment in general. The Bloodline, Jimmy and Jey Uso, have come out of their shells to become two of the best actors in the world today. Solo Sikoa, the new part of the family, is playing the stoic enforcer perfectly. Then you've got Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn who've been on the periphery moving into the main event of this Bloodline story. Those guys' careers have just taken off to a new level. So everyone that's involved in this program has played their part to an absolute tee, and I don't know how you can do it any better."

On surviving 26 years in WWE:

"I think one of the reasons that I've survived as long as I have here, is I have never, with the exception of maybe one or two people, I have never become close personal friends with anybody in the ring. I've always kept an arm's length' distance. I'm friendly with them. We talk, exchange texts, do whatnot, but I'm not the type of guy that's gonna go out for dinner with him. I'm not the type of guy that's gonna go sit in the bar with him for the most part. It's the same thing as being a journalist in a weird sort of way even though what we do is scripted television. You know, you really have to separate friendship from our profession, and so for the most part, I'm friendly, but I'm not friends with the guys I work with, and that's done by design."

"I'm a very private person. I don't have that public persona. You're not going to read about me in the dirt sheets. You're not going to read about me on social media. I have a life away from our company and I've had the opportunity to be able to separate those things for 26 years. My wife's not a wrestling fan. She doesn't watch the product. My kids aren't wrestling fans. They don't watch the product, I go to work and I do my job and I go home and we talk about the world and not WWE. I think that's helped me as a performer and it's helped my longevity here as well."

On possibly retiring:

"People ask me all the time, 'How long are you gonna do this for?' I'll tell you one thing, you know, 30 years would be a really cool goal. That's four years from now. But I can promise you this, I will get out before I slip. I'm not going to be, and no disrespect to anyone else, but I'm not going to be a 75 or 80 year old man doing this week in and week out. I busted my ass. I made a really good living and I want to be able to get out while the going is good and still be able to enjoy the rest of my life. I don't want to be a shell of myself. I don't want to be that, 'Man, that guy used to be good. He's not good anymore.' I don't want to be that person."