New Bedford’s Samantha (Johnson) Irvin Announces WWE Departure

New Bedford native Samantha Johnson, who performs in World Wrestling Entertainment under the name Samantha Irvin, is leaving the company.

Johnson announced today via social media that her “time has to come to an end as your Monday Night Raw ring announcer.”

“I love you all tremendously and this does not mark the end of my art, I have a lifetime more to share,” she wrote. “Thank you to every WWE fan who accepted me.”

Johnson went on to praise the women’s locker room, the television production staff, her broadcast colleagues and the WWE superstars.

“The respect I have for you is more than I can express,” she wrote. “Thank you for making it so easy to pour emotion and excitement into your introductions.”

“You are the stars that the stars idolize. It doesn’t get any bigger and I’m proud to have used my voice to let the world know it,” she wrote.

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Johnson had become known for her unique introductions for each wrestler, often having specific inflections that reflected the wrestler’s in-ring persona.

She was also known for getting emotional at ringside, such as when she announced Cody Rhodes as the new WWE Champion at Wrestlemania 40 back in April.

Many of the WWE wrestlers were responding to Johnson’s post on social media, mostly just offering emojis to show love and support. Johnson had been with WWE for about three and a half years, and had been the ring announcer for Raw since February 2023. That came after a 13-month stint as the ring announcer on Friday Night Smackdown, and a brief stint on 205 Live and in NXT before that.

Career highlights included announcing all the matches for the historic two-night Wrestlemania 40 card this year, and also getting to share the ring with a childhood idol, former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia.

READ MORE: New Bedford's Samantha Irvin Shares Ring With Her WWE Idol

Johnson is engaged to former WWE wrestler Ricochet, who joined rival promotion All Elite Wrestling in August of this year. Wrestling journalist Sean Ross Sap of Fightful Select reported on Twitter that the outlet spoke to sources in WWE and AEW who said “they’d be shocked if Samantha Irvin isn’t made an offer to join AEW.”

Johnson, meanwhile, gave no indication of future plans or the reason for her departure on her social media post, only ending with “To my fans, my entire career I’ve been waiting for you! We are meant to be and I can prove it. Stay tuned.”