Comments on: Column: Today’s Commentators, What Went Wrong?

By: Sharp Shooter

Sharp Shooter — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 03:08:01 +0000

I like Striker as an announcer, JR is the salty veteran that should be paired with the Lawler as a given.

Cole, sucks ass as announcer. You are right Keelan he does sound phoney and scarsistic. WWE management are just plain stupid to let JBL go without securing his vocal talent, and pair him with Cole, It was amusing to listen him diss Cole on many levels.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:00:20 +0000

I think Todd is a lot better than most people give him credit for. He’s got some attitude under the surface that creeps out sometimes that makes him seem kinda cool…him and Striker were GREAT together.

I totally agree with everyone who says Cole and Lawler are dreadful though…Lawler just can’t be bothered anymore, and Cole seems to have got much worse since he split from JBL. Raw’s announcing is dire.

By: Mike Hunt

Mike Hunt — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:39:36 +0000

Good article. i like the fact that you have taken what everybody else thought and commented. However, the main problem for all commentators is VINCE!you don’t have soccer, basketball, american football, snooker, darts, horse racing etc with the head guy of the federation yelling in their ears what to say. i think it needs to go back to gorilla and heenan days or jesse ventura days….the commentating was slick, smart and funny

By: jarred bright

jarred bright — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:23:58 +0000

Michael Cole, Todd Grisham and Josh Matthews all have the journalist background. Which i do notice the seem to call matches from a sporting point of view. Where is Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler and Matt Striker have were Wrestler’s so they look at it from a Wrestler’s Point of view. And Jim Ross seems to be the middle man who knows all about the creative side of things and the sport.

All vince has done is tried to keep things fresh by splitting them up evenly.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:43:53 +0000

Josh Mathews is great, and this is the first I’ve hears of people not liking him. Also, I think Don West is hilarious and his over-the-top humor actually makes me laugh out loud. Grisham is pretty bland but I don’t mind him. Michael Cole is terrible, though. He can’t call finishers correctly and undercuts the young talent by going on about how it’s a HUGE UPSET whenever they win.

By: Brian Marchand

Brian Marchand — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:33:39 +0000

It seems commentators now a days talk about anything but the match. WWE commentators will mention what happened to HHH last week or earlier on and not comment on what is going on in the ring. Gorilla Mansoon and Jesse Ventura were an awsome team.

Cole and Tazz I find were great. Maybe with time they will get better. For now they are simply terrbile.

By: Dan Selby

Dan Selby — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:20:24 +0000

First off, I totally cringed when Matthews said about Dreamer having a couple of fans. It almost ruined the match for me, and I know that’s silly, but isn’t that a prime example of just how much impact a commentator can have..? It was embarrasing, and I could almost feel Striker’s embarrasment. How can you openly discredit your champion??? Talk about taking a sh*t on your own doorstep.

Did anyone else not feel that maybe they were getting word over the headsets to bury Tommy a little? There was also quite a select comment on Christian’s entrance (“Dare I say it, Christian got a bigger reaction than Tommy, IN Philly!”). To me, that just hurts Tommy’s credibility. If it doesn’t put both guys over, then why even mention it?? Again, I felt this was called over the headsets to try and establish Christian as a big player (note on all the SD/ECW adverts, they advertise only Christian from ECW.. Says alot).

Also, people need to back off of Don West. He WAS horrible – key word: Was.

Internet wrestling fans are too stubbourn to accept Don’s clearly got better, and is playing a textbook heel. I happen to find the whole texting the Beautiful People thing really funny… It’s so clearly not true that it’s funny. It’s meant to make Don West look like a try-hard loser. Y’know, the character..?

Selby

By: paul

paul — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:46:34 +0000

Good answers i respect your opinions those are just some of my opinions we cant all believe in the same thing.

By: James Wright

James Wright — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:26:32 +0000

I agree with all of what Keelan is saying and I also think that Striker and Matthews make a great team, they seem to be the most honest of all teh micromanaged announce teams in the WWE. Whether this gets them in trouble or not I don’t know.

On Don West; at first I thought his heel announcing was a little forced but now it seems to be working. I’m not sure if you were saying fans didn’t like him due to his ability as an announcer or because of what he was saying, if it is the latter then I’m not sure why because it was only a little while ago that you wrote an article like mine on the lack of heel announcers. And if it is the former then I have to disagree since I have seen very few fan criticisms of his work, beside my own on some occasions, and as I have said he is starting to improve. I think it’s great how he spouts rubbish that obviously isn’t true, do you remember the King in the days of Evolution? Exactly the same thing there and it was announce team gold. It just adds to the face-heel announce team dynamic, you know he is in the wrong and so it either strengthens your hatred for him or makes you laugh when the face announcer gets frustrated, either way it’s a win.

It’s just a shame that TNA doesn’t have two shows since they could do a great combination of Taz and Mick Foley as face-heel announcers and it would serve Vince right for driving the two out of the WWE in the first place. Maybe the two could just call MEM matches, that would be brilliant.

By: Carl Keane

Carl Keane — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:22:44 +0000

In reference to Don West’s lying, he is just playing into his character and we’re meant to beieve that he is lying through his teeth to big himself up.
The actual problem with West is that he tries too hard to base his characters ideals and often his match calls on that of King’s (in his prime) instead of creating something original.