EXCLUSIVE: Vic Joseph Details The Bond Of Pro Wrestling Shared With His Late Father

Vic Joseph shared a unique bond with his father over sports entertainment.

Vic Joseph / WWE.co

Typically, if you grow up in Cleveland, you're either a fan of the NFL's Browns or MLB's Indians (now the Guardians). It's the right of passage shared between father and son.

That sentiment rang true in Vic Joseph's home when he was growing up. He and his father, David, watched the Browns every Sunday during football season and the Indians from April to September, with an occasional October playoff appearance.

But there was something that drew young Vic and David together. Pro wrestling. Specifically, the WWE. Joseph, who will provide play-by-play on Sunday evening alongside Booker T for WWE NXT Halloween Havoc (7 p.m. ET, Peacock), remembers attending his first WWE show with his father quite fondly when he was six or seven years old.

"It was a live event at the Richfield Coliseum," Joseph told The Takedown. "So my dad told me that, 'Oh, we're going to an ISDA event', which stands for the Italian Sons and Daughters Association of America. It's a real thing. It just wasn't made up. This is like the early 90s. We get in, and I see all these people walking.

"We walk through the curtain like you still do at an event. I see the ring, and the ring is getting bigger and bigger. I'm in awe, and we were there in the front row. I got to pat "Macho Man" Randy Savage on the back. Mr. Perfect was on the card. Bret Hart was the champion. He actually worked with Mr. Hughes in the main event. Shawn Michaels was on the card. It was so cool."

While young Vic was instantly hooked on pro wrestling, it wasn't his first job. He worked at a CBS Radio affiliate in Cleveland where he covered the Browns. For Joseph, an itch needed to be scratched and he wanted to get into what he loved while growing up with David. But he took a path you don't hear about from the announcing side of the equation. He followed the path usually taken by the wrestlers.

MORE: Forgotten No More: Cora Jade Out to Cement Her Spot in WWE NXT at Halloween Havoc [Exclusive]

"I was doing affiliate baseball in Northwest Ohio for a couple of different teams,"Joseph explained. I said, ‘Here's my credentials. I just want to come in and get experience. Don't pay me’.

"It was the snowball effect of, you meet this person, you meet this person, jump in the car, go do this. I was jumping in the car with Rhino and going to all these independents and sleeping. You're talking about someone working for CBS Sports Cleveland, and I was sleeping in the car outside of a gas station Pilot on the highway just because we had to make the next town on an independent. Then I met Tommy Dreamer and got into House of Hardcore, and that put me on the map. But every time I did something, it was to learn. Tommy, Rhino, and those guys would teach me what it's going to take to get to a level of doing WWE.

After toiling on the independents while still at his shoot job, the pot of gold at the end of rainbow happened for Joseph in 2017, as he signed a contract with WWE. At first, he did it all. A jack of all trades you'd say.

"When I got here, I hit the ground running because I was already so passionate about it," Joseph passionately said. "Let me go do it. And for the first few years I was here, I was a commentator for 205 Live, Mix Match challenge for NXT. Not only was I doing those shows, which meant flying over to Europe four days a month, every month for two years for NXT UK. I also was a ring announcer doing the live events for Raw, SmackDown and even NXT, along with being a host for some of those live events. So I was wearing all these different hats, but I loved doing it because you were learning about the business."

MORE: The 10 Highest Paid WWE Wrestlers

The hard work paid off for Joseph as he was promoted in September 2019 to be the lead voice for Raw. He did it for a few months before leaving the post in January 2020. Due to COVID, Jospeh was furloughed for a short time before returning and becoming the lead announcer for NXT in August 2020.

Things couldn't have been going better for the father of two and the husband of Mackenzie Mitchell. He was at his dream job, working for one of his idols in Shawn Michaels, and commentating alongside someone he's grown close to in Booker T.

But tragedy struck in July 2023 when Joseph learned that David had cancer that went to his brain and lungs. As Jospeh put it, "It just filled up his entire body". He knew David wasn't going to be around for too much longer. He wanted to ensure though that he'd be there every step of the way for the man who raised him.

Joseph kept things under the radar and only told a select few in WWE. Some companies wouldn't have cared too much beyond offering their thoughts and moving on with their lives. That did not happen with WWE, as they were in lockstep with Joseph the entire way.

MORE: The 10 Longest WWE Championship Reigns

"They really moved church and state to make sure that I was there," Joseph said. "To be perfectly honest, it was Shawn (Michaels), Hunter (Paul Levesque), Michael Cole, Alicia Taylor, and Johnny Russo. It was a small group of people that knew. I can't tell you how many times Shawn Michaels came to me and was like, ‘Are you sure? Go home. It's ok. It's ok to go home’.

"I’m like, ‘I want to stay here’. Hunter would say the same thing. Michael Cole lost his father, and still did Monday Night Raw. So Michael Cole actually had walked in the shoes that I was walking in. He was there for me anytime I needed them to just, this is what I'm feeling this. How did you handle this situation? They were always there. And if I needed to get home on a Saturday because there was a doctor's appointment, I never missed one doctor's appointment. They made sure that I had a flight no matter what it was going to be. They made sure that I was on the flight that I needed to be on to get home because it was very important to Hunter, to Shawn, to Nick Khan and to the company that I was was home (and) I was going to be with my dad."

David battled for as long as he could. He ended up passing away on October 10, 2023 at the age of 73. Despite the person who got him into wrestling losing his battle with cancer, Vic knew only one thing to do.

"He died on a Tuesday morning," Joseph said. I did the show, which was when Cody was here and The Undertaker, Cena, and all of them. There was no way that I was going to miss that show, that I was going to go home that day. That morning when he died, my wife said, ‘Vic, you may want to call your sister’.  I called her, and I told her what happened. And I looked at her (his wife), I said,’ I need you to text Shawn, Cole and Alicia and tell them what happened. Tell them I'm doing the show. And tell them, Do not ask me not to do the show because I'm going to do it’.

"I did the show. And when the show ended, Shawn was there to greet me. I'll never forget with a big hug and how proud he was. And the next day, Hunter called me. For those guys and Hunter specifically to take time out of his day, to take time out and Cole, Coach (Matt) Bloom, once they found out to take time out of their day with everything that goes around with a global company, to stop and say, ‘I need to check in’ just shows you really that some of the stories that you read, I didn't walk in the shoes of those people, but for me, the family aspect of the WWE meant so much to me during that period of time."

Vic looks back and fondly of David. He understood that David was his biggest cheerleader. David made sure he watched everything not just because he loved the WWE, but because he loved Vic and that was their bond of wrestling, which could never be broken. Vic's dream was working for the WWE and David got to see him accomplish the goal that first began at the Richfield Coliseum, screaming and cheering for his favorite WWE superstars.

MORE: 20 Greatest WWE Wrestlers Of All Time

"He watched every single week," Joseph admits. "He loved Drew McIntyre. He loved Omos. He was watching. Then he’d tell you what he didn't like, and he'd tell you what he didn't get. He would record Monday. He would record NXT. He would record Smackdown. He'd fast forward through the commercials. He watched the matches, and then he'd call me, and he'd leave me voicemails. I didn't answer the phone and was talking about wrestling. That was our thing. It turned into a thing with my younger siblings, and then it turned into things with my son, who would watch wrestling with my dad while he was watching his dad."

"Even when he was sick, he'd sit back and he'd go turn on NXT. He'd sit in his hospital room and watch the show."

"He got to watch these shows and see me call a match at WrestleMania and get the WrestleMania program. He was always so proud of all that. He kept my trading card in his wallet, which I always thought was pretty cool."