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On September 26, 2019, WWE announced that they would be revamping the commentary teams of every brand starting from their Premiere Week.
With WWE RAW's Michael Cole, Corey Graves and Renee Young moving to Friday nights on SmackDown, Monday nights will be voiced by returning Hall of Famer Jerry 'The King' Lawler and WWE 205 Live's Vic Joseph and Dio Maddin.
The WWE Universe is somewhat familiar with the veteran Joseph's insightful commentary on the purple brand but who exactly is Dio Maddin and what can we expect from him to bring to the commentary booth on RAW?
Here, we will take a glimpse into 5 interesting facts associated with the new voice of RAW, Dio Maddin.
#1 He has a professional football background
Like many WWE Superstars before him such as Goldberg, Ron Simmons, and JBL, Dio Maddin also had a stint at college and professional football. Dio Maddin, born as Brennan Marcel Williams in North Easton, Massachusetts, USA was athletic from his early years in college.
Dio found his footing in football when he became a member of PrepStar's High School-All America team. He was lauded for his performances as an offensive tackle by various sports websites and athletic conferences.
His father, Brent Williams was also a footballer who played in the position of the defensive end for three teams in an NFL career that encompassed 11 years.
In 2013, Maddin was draft picked by the NFL team Houston Texans in the third round as their 89th overall pick. Unluckily for him, he missed the rookie season with a knee injury and was released by the team on July 21, 2014.
After going through a microfracture surgery on his knee, Dio Maddin went on to have a brief stint in The Jacksonville Jaguars and The New England Patriots but never played a match for either team.
He left the NFL shortly after that and decided to try his hand in professional wrestling.
#2 He was trained by Booker T
Sometime around October 2015, Dio Maddin joined Booker T's wrestling promotion Reality of Wrestling. He was trained by the two-time WWE Hall of Famer and made his in-ring debut under the name of Marcellus Black in February 2016.
He also underwent a WWE tryout session in the same month and a few months later it was reported that he was signed by the Company and started training at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.
#3 His time as a developmental talent in WWE NXT
Although he never got an opportunity to make a televised debut on NXT, he competed frequently on house shows under his real name of Brennan Williams.
He scored his first NXT victory against Kishan Raftar on January 21, 2017, but would then go on to have a series of losses against other NXT talents such as Steve Cutler, Montez Ford, Mark Andrews, Buddy Murphy, Jeet Rama, and others in mostly singles competition.
He would later pick up some wins from September 2018 when he returned on the September 6 house show and defeated Amanpreet Singh a.k.a. Mahabali Shera.
He would later be given his current ring-name of Dio Maddin in June 2019 before ultimately getting called up to the main roster as 205 Live's commentator.
#4 He is an avid anime and manga fan
Dio Maddin is a fan of Japanese anime and manga and considers himself to be an 'otaku', the Japanese term for a geek or a nerd in the purest sense. He is a fan of popular anime series such as Neon Genesis: Evangelion, JoJo's Bizarre Adventures (JJBA) and Fist of the North Star to name a few.
It is implied that his ring name of Dio Maddin might be a reference to popular anime and manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventures' antagonist Dio Brando, otherwise known as DIO (we will get to the Maddin part later on).
During his run as an independent wrestler, he named his finisher after the opening theme song of 1995 TV anime series: '(A) Cruel Angel's Thesis'.
In the 2019 WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view event, Maddin wore a tie that had the motifs of Killer Queen, a Stand character from JoJo's Bizarre Adventures: Diamond is Unbreakable.
#5 His online presence on social media
Dio Maddin is also very much active on social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram and uses his spare time to interact with the fans in subjects relating to anime, sports, wrestling, and video games.
He also has a Twitch account and a YouTube account where he uploads gameplay videos.
There is a funny story behind his last name, i.e. 'Maddin'. Dio has done a lot of collaborative work with Woolie Madden from the YouTube channel Castle Superbeast. Due to his uncanny resemblance with Madden, he has often dubbed himself as "Better Woolie" to annoy Madden.
It is speculated that he has taken the name of Maddin as a reference to Woolie Madden.
Dio Maddin has done commentary for a few matches in WWE 205 Live but has already garnered some favorable feedbacks from the WWE Universe. He is a humorous and fun-loving individual and it remains to be seen if the Monday nights will get spiced up under Dio's mic work.
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