Mike Adamle & Tazz Leave ECW?

The Raw and ECW television shows have both seen strange endings on back to back nights. Raw had the lights shut out on its main event between Randy Orton and Triple H for the WWE Championship. This one was clearly set up, as the brand new King and General Manager of the show, William Regal felt disrespected enough to punish the WWE fans. On ECW we had another main event, non-title, with Kane in a handicap match against Bam Neely & Chavo Guerrero. This one had absolutely no commentary for the entire match due to the fact that both commentators walked off. Before Kane even arrived to the ring, Mike Adamle stopped commentary mid-sentence, took off his headset, had a few brief words with Tazz, then exited through the side crowd barricade. After Tazz asked "Mike where you going?" several times, he eventually got up and asked someone which way Adamle went. Tazz took off his headset and exited in the same general area.

So this prompts the big question: what happened? It's been obvious that not only fans and wrestling analysts have been critical of Adamle in his brief role as a WWE/ECW commentator. He started just weeks ago, but had seemingly been eased into the role, first working as a sideline reporter to introduce main events or help hype matches for PPV's. Last week, The Miz sat ringside with Tazz and Adamle, and made a few "playful" jabs about the new commentator's work. On Tuesday night, Adamle received a few more playful comments from Matt Striker in the ring, and then Mick Foley tossing Mr. Socko onto the commentators table. Tazz jokingly put the sock in Adamle's mouth. Adamle joked about keeping the sock in his mouth, saying a lot of people might want that. Tazz chuckled to reassure Adamle he was doing alright, then added jokingly "ok maybe you're right".

WWE.com provided the following about ECW's Walkoff:

Adamle and Tazz reportedly exited the arena and marched straight to the parking lot. Adamle was said to look shocked and expressionless as he left.

WWE Superstars were taken aback by this unprecedented occurrence. Calls and texts to both Adamle and Tazz have gone unanswered.

It has been no secret that our traditional ECW fans have not been satisfied with Adamle’s lackluster commentary. Speculation is this could have led to the play by play and color commentator walking off during a WWE broadcast. Did Adamle and Tazz leave of their own volition or were they asked to leave?

Quite possibly Mike Adamle simply had enough of the criticism and jokes, or he was being ribbed by nearby audience members. He's worked with NBC Sports, NFL shows and the older version of American Gladiators. Working for World Wrestling Entertainment was a change for Adamle, who was thrust into this new role. His pride may have been hurt by some playful yet obnoxious remarks, causing the newest commentator to simply walk off.

Another thought popped into my head as the whole series of events was going down on ECW, with both commentators leaving the final match. Quite possibly it was the work of the new King of WWE, William Regal, who claims he is the most powerful entity now. First he turns the lights off on Raw, then he takes the sound out of ECW. Both moments occurred during the main event matches. While Regal is not GM of ECW, he is the King and has proclaimed his power to everyone. PWMania has assured fans this is a storyline and the WWE.com report above poses the question "were they asked to leave?".

With Smackdown arriving on Friday, Mick Foley makes his commentary debut, and you'd have to wonder if we will get a main event ending with no issues.