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Retired, but commentating?

Hey Scott,
 
I'm sure this question has come up before, but I don't recall seeing it in a good, long while:
 
Why don't see more retired wrestlers becoming commentators? Say what you will about Tazz, but he's not altogether horrible. The same for Booker T. But then I think about guys who have been amazing on the mic, but not picked up the headset. Mick Foley is the best example of this. Though I recall he couldn't stand having Vince in his ear all the time.
 
I mean, you look back at at least two of the (arguably) best commentators back in the day – Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura – and they chose to don the headset. Others who couldn't wrestle as actively also did, such as Dibiase and Mr. Perfect (both of whom were quite good in my opinion).
 
So, why do you think we don't see it as often anymore? Aside from Booker T, JBL's the last guy to really take the reigns. Do you think it all boils down to these greater mic workers not wanting to be yelled at by Vince for 2-3 hours about what to say? Who are some other guys that you think would be tailor made to replace JR or Lawler? You mentioned recently that Punk could be a road agent, but I think he'd be even better as a commentator.
 
Thanks,
Nick Piers


I think we don't see it for the reasons you mentioned -- they don't want to get yelled at by Vince for hours on end, and I'd also say that Vince wants his commentators to look like Josh Matthews, not Mick Foley.  Plus guys just aren't trained to be witty and off-the-cuff anymore in the age of scripted promos.  I will say that one of the best I've ever heard was Johnny Polo and I'm continually disappointed that Scott Levy seemingly has no desire to pursue that particular retirement path because he was AWESOME.  You'd think Jim Cornette would have been better than he was, but he was merely OK as a color guy, funny lines aside.  He was only really effective when he was getting his own storylines over in SMW, I think.  

Anyway, Punk is always great on commentary, although I don't think he'd ever go that route.  Cody Rhodes is pretty fun when he's on commentary ("I made a huge error in judgment" was a tremendous deadpan line during that Big Show feud.)  I think Big Show could pull it off, but the problem there is that you don't want your color guy overshadowing the talent in terms of size.  Ideally for your heel commentator you want someone who can talk a lot of shit about the babyfaces, but someone who the fans "know" would get his ass kicked if they ever said it to their face.  Bobby Heenan was of course the perfect example of this, but JBL was good at it as well because he ALWAYS backed down from a fight in that persona.  

Comments

  1. Everything Scott said, plus I'd add, not every wrestler is good at commentating.  In fact, there are wrestlers who were awesome promo men, who still sucked at commentary.  I remember when the WWE did the WCW launch and had Arn Anderson do commentary and wow did he suck.  However, no one could sell an angle on the mic like The Enforcer.  It's a weird thing.  Happens in sports too.  There are some guys who i'm sure know the game like the back of their hand, but suck at commentary and analysis.  Emmitt Smith anyone?

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  2. Yeah, it is too bad more ex-wrestlers don't go that route, just because it gives the product a kind of credibility I think if done right.  Of course they have to be good too.  We just had an embarrassment of riches in the 1980s as far as commentators go.

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  3. If anyone has seen any of NXT over the last year and a half or so, you'll know how good William Regal is at commentary.  The sooner they can give Lawler the boot and bring Regal up to RAW, the better I say.

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  4. Just an addendum to my own e-mail:

    Edge is a guy that I recall being good on colour commentary. There's a guy who still has a great love for the business and I bet would be quite good on commentary.

    (Also, I don't even remember when I sent that e-mail. Scott's inbox must be pretty badly backlogged.)

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  5. I doubt he'd do it what with Fozzy and all his other irons in the fire but I bet jericho would be excellent as an announcer.

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  6. The handful of times Steve Austin did it was pretty great.

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  7. Did that guy insinuate Booker T isn't awful on commentary?

    TELL ME! HE DID NOT! JUST SAY THAT!

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  8. Scott Anthony was great on commentary in Global..

    and Punk is the only guy I've ever heard in my life actually slip and give away the results of a match before it happened (KOTR2010).. can't do that..

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  9. I really hope JBL does come back. He's been dropping some hints on Twitter recently. Best colour man since Heyman.

    Also hope they give road Dogg a go as he seems a natural.

    Also think Bully/Bubba Ray could e good further down the road

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  10. What was also great about JBL is that he still put over faces huge as far as their talent, as opposed to Heel Michael Cole burying the shit out of guys verbally. 

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  11. You never saw WrestleMania XV live then?  That's the one where Michael Cole told us all to tune in to The Shopping Network after the show to hear from the NEW WWE Champion...before the main event had even started.

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  12. this. I specifically remember a tag match between Kendrick/London and Deuce/Domino where he managed to put over the importance of the tag team titles as well as both teams.

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  13. What's funny to me about Monsoon is how "cool" it was to hate on him in the 1980s. Meltzer & the Observer Awards always gave him "Worst Commentator" knocks, yet nowadays, all the fans love him. Was it just classic "I'm so anti-establishment and won't eat what those mainstream fucks feed me!" stuff?

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  14. It's odd, because I had a few questions a couple weeks ago that were both answered in like a day- one was answered so quickly that I couldn't even get a comment in before people basically got finished with the conversation! It was the "Bret Hart Categories" one that rated wrestlers.

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  15.  ''
    Say what you will about Tazz, but he's not altogether horrible. The same for Booker T. ''

    Died laughing at this. I hope Tazz in a moustache and fake glasses sent this e-mail.

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  16. Here's the best of Johnny Polo http://youtu.be/FZYRGMen_PA

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  17. One guy nobody would expect to be a great commentator would be Scott Hall and surprised all the times he's been hired, they never just give him a cushy commentator's job.  I loved his commentaries on youtube when he would watch old wrestling matches.

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  18. I wish Cyrus would jump back in the booth. His heel ECW stuff was awesome. 

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  19. The Wrestling Observer crowd tends to hate on any announcer who doesn't sound like Gordon Solie. Was Monsoon a perfect announcer, no, especially when not working with Heenan or Ventura, but he was certainly better than the likes of Ron Trongard. Monsoon tended to work to the level of the color announcer was paired with.

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  20. He never posts my emails.

    NEVER.

    Unless its QnD

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  21. Booker T is terrible of course. He never really has anything to say, just "will you look at that, dog? Did you SEE that?" Tazz is not the best of all time by any means but he's fine.

    The one I really thought we'd see was Edge. He'd be awesome at it, and I was hoping he was just waiting for the itch and frustration to subside before he could go back on the road with the guys. I know he is no longer under contract but it could still happen.

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  22. I seem to recall Rick Rude was pretty good back in the late 1990's on Raw. . .

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  23. Speaking of commentating, my favorite duos of all time are Gorilla Monsoon & Jesse Ventura, Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan, and Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler (circa 98-01).  I would've liked to have seen Ross and Heenan as a team back in the day, especially in the WWF.

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  24. I also feel Matt Striker was overrated as hell. He almost ruined the WM26 match between Shawn and Taker imo. I also didn't care too much for the Cole & Tazz team, especially circa May 2002 - April 2004). During the early days of the brand extension, something I NEVER was a fan of, we'd have to constantly hear about "Smackdown this, Smackdown that", "you can only see this kind of action on Smackdown", "you'll only see such and such on Smackdown", etc, etc. I'm like "DAMN, we get it already, give it a rest!"

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  25. This is one of the various glaring examples of how Vince doesn't care what anyone thinks and actually hurts his own product because of it. He would rather have a Michael Cole, who is so bad that he actually brings the product down with it because he somehow thinks this will make him more mainstream.

    If I can go off on quick rant right now: This is one of the things about Vince McMahon that boggles my mind line no other. He seems obsessed with this idea that if he has a certain looking person doing interviews or announcing that has a background in mainstream sports or media than outsiders will look at the product and ever forget every other ridiculous thing they've seen during the course of a wrestling show and be like, "Oh I had it all wrong this whole time look at that professional looking announcer. The WWE is just like ESPN/CNN." But than he refuses to give his wrestlers something that actually would make people not look at the WWE like a carny act like health insurance. The dude is weird.

    But anyway, a person like Gorilla, or Jesse, or Heenan when he cared, or Jim Ross, they actually get the storyline and the wrestlers over with what they say. Has Michael Cole ever done that? I highly doubt it. And was Vince screaming in those previous guys ears? Again doubtful. He might have said something here or there but he had faith that those guys knew what thy were saying. Shit, if he did that to Jesse I bet Jesse tells Vince to go fuck himself.

    I don't mind Josh Mathews because he was a fan first and he's been working with the company for over 10 years now. Of they would give him some freedom I think he could get better. He'll cut Cole off when he's rambling about some stupid shit that has nothing to do with the match.

    Cole on the other hand, even though he's been doing it for like 15 years now seems to be going in the opposite direction. He seem like he doesn't care anymore. And he sucked when he was trying hard. So that's not a good combo.

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  26. In like 04 Josh was calling Velocity with Bill DeMott and they were a pretty good team

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  27. I doubt it, all that travel with a bad neck would be brutal.

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  28.  I'm hoping, although I don't know this for a fact, that with rest the neck will become good enough to travel even though it would be far to risky to ever wrestle again.

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  29. The funny thing is that Vince has been putting in those "pretty boy" announcer for almost thirty years. I never took any of those "pretty boys" seriously because even as kid I knew they were there for their looks not their knowledge or the passion for professional wrestling. The announcers were there to be listened to not to look at so why did they have to be young and good looking. Give a Gordon Solie, a Gorilla Monsoon, a Bob Caudle, a Jesse Ventura over a Craig DeGeorge, Sean Mooney, or an Eric Bishoff.

    Not so surprisingly, with the exception of Michael Cole, these "pretty boy" announcers used the WWE as a stepping stone to other broadcasting jobs. Weren't Jonathan Coachman and Todd Grisham supposed to be the voices of the WWE by now? These announcers use the WWE as a resume builder but I guess Vince is fine with that since he prefers hiring announcers that are easy to look at rather than those who are knowledgeable about and actually likes pro wrestling.

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  30.  Don't disrespect the Mooney.  Control center, "encounters," star trek uniform... the man could say and do it all.

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  31.  Very true.  Still, if you watch some of those old Prime Time Wrestling shows, Monsoon and Heenan can't phone it in even when they tried!  There were times where you'd see the both of them subdued and just looking to record the show and be done with it--yet, their natural chemistry always provided sparks.  So, over the course of a show, they'd play off each other so well, become more engaged, and become more entertaining. I just loved that even on their worst days, they couldn't help but be entertaining.

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  32. Hey, Smith once told us that Jim Valvano's famous line was "Don't quit...don't even quit," and he told us all about the "rites of patches" people have to go through to become great.  Remember guys, don't even quit.

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  33. I tend to answer time-sensitive ones more quickly, or barring that, ones that show up when I'm actually on my computer.  90% of the mail I get just shows up when I'm at work and I just have to relegate it to the "later" pile and hope for the best.  

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  34. Yeah they really didn't like him. I remember them always harping on his improper use of the word "literally" and mocking his use of medical terminology.

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  35. They did a few Coliseum Video matches as I recall.

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  36.  You're right, and I believe one of those matches are on the Randy Savage DVD set.

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  37. Another great wrestler turned announcer: Owen Hart.  His commentary during KOTR 1996 was worth the price of admission alone.

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  38. In Coachman's defense, he said working with Vince meant being on call 24/7, and he couldn't deal with that nonsense.

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  39. I thought he was better when he was paired with Ernest Miller. But yeah, he's always underrated as a commentator and it's sad that he's usually the first to get bumped out of the chair when they have extra guys.

    But yeah, most successful Tough Enough guy ever. He's now been in the 'E for a fucking DECADE.

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  40. I liked him at first when he was the smarky commentator. It's when he started spouting facts that were blatantly wrong that he started to outlive his usefulness. 

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  41. You've done a lot of hilarious shit with BM, but the Insipid Tazz Commentary intro slays me every goddamn time.

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  42. And considering how shitty Deuce and Domino were in every possible way, that's impressive.

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  43.  I hear you on that.

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  44. I love Regal on commentary, but I doubt he'd be able to use that style on RAW. Too much focus on the match, not enough drama and emotion. Although I love the weekly retelling of which body part Camacho bit off the gang members attacking Hunico.

    On a related note, JR on NXT kinda sucks. The matches really aren't that important, and he over sells them because they are the greatest out of the ones he gets to call. Sad, really.

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