Am I the only one who misses heel comentators?

[Cookie14]

From Jesse Ventura, to Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler to Paul Heyman, WWE has had a history of heel comentators, usually paired with faces like 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, Jim Ross, hell even Michael Cole (though long before the 'vintage' Cole)

Nowadays, we have Michael 'vintage' Cole, Matt Striker and a few other generic, dull idiots that drone on for a few weeks it seems before they get replaced.

Even The King has gone soft.

I would love WWE to bring back a heel comentator. Hell, just a commentator with a personality would be nice.

(I appologise if this has already been done before)

 

[Sharpshooter51]

I think the biggest issue here, at least with WWE, is that Vinnie Mac is yelling things into the ears of the announcers throughout the whole show. They are unable to develop their own personalities because they are mouthpieces of Vince.

Personally, I never found King to be entertaining.... "puppies" jokes got old after a while...

Matt Striker has shown flashes of good announcing at times...and Cole's "vintage" comments are a good source of humor when used properly...but the fact is...in my opinion, the announcing sucks

 

[Marko Markovic]

Well,"vintage" Cole is heel comentator lately.He trashed Danyel Bryan and all IWC community on NXT.He is not all heel but has some heel lines.

You got the point that they are worst now and they should be working on something new at comentary space.I think they should allow some of the superstars who are stucked in roster to try as commentators.It could brush up their mic skills and its hell of a lot better then to do some stupid scetches on RAW or just job every week

 

[ZUMBOdriver]

I also miss heel commentary in WWE's programming very much. It was mentioned earlier that Vince McMahon has so much control over the announcers and that certainly puts a damper on things. He may be a control freak, but Vince should know better than to leave his mark all over the current commentary. Even he had to know that he sucked hard on commentary.

It's a sad state when Michael Cole is considered the main heel commentator when in reality he is just a puppet. He and anyone else who fancies themselves heel commentators need to go watch some tape and listen to how Bobby Heenan did it. Heenan is so enjoyable to listen to in old matches playing the perfect antagonist to whoever the face play by play commentator was. I would say the WWE needs to get someone like Bobby Heenan in there, but you just don't pull that kind of rare talent out of thin air. Someone should at least try to mimic Heenan's shtick because someone with even half the talent Heenan had would still be pretty good.

 

[Chargersfan1901]

The only commentator I miss is Jim Ross. I know he wasn't heel, but the Jim Ross/Jerry Lawler combination was by far my favorite and I will always look forward to see if it ever happens again. Although it's far from likely.

 

[jbwphoto1]

When I read the thread title, I immediately thought of Jesse Ventura. Not only was he heel commentator, but like his cohort Gorilla Monsoon, he was an actual competitor who could do both play-by-play and color commentary. Jesse taught us that things are not always right or wrong, but sometimes various shades of gray You say the heel manager was choking a man. Jesse says he was checking to make sure his windpipe hadn't been damaged. One of my other favorite heel commentators will always be JBL. JBL covered matches and insulted his commentating partner like he actually meant everything he said. You truly believed JBL hated all the faces and Michael Cole to boot.

I remember the last days of NWA Mid-Atlantic before the Crocketts went big time. They had a commentary team of Lance Russell, Michael PS Hayes and Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin. Russell proved a good foil for the two close friends and the trio kept you entertained even when the wrestling action didn't.

I agree with a previous poster who said you can't have your own personality with Vince yelling in your ear and feeding you all your lines. Everything any commentator says will sound just like the next. Not sure what's going to happen to Taz now in TNA. I still consider him a heel and wish he would get more behind that persona.

 

[FutureChamp328]

I do miss the good heel commentators. Back in like '06 and '07 you had three announce teams which were pretty good teams: Raw - JR and King, SD - JBL and Micheal Cole, and ECW - Tazz and Joey Styles. All of these teams were easily better than anything we have today because each had a good heel commentator namely King, JBL, and sometimes Tazz. King was just the man when he would cheer for the heels and try to justify everything they did and he was also just funny with JR. JBL would do just what everyone wants to do and call out Cole for being an idiot and the way he spoke was just great because he took his already tailor made character and just put it at the announce table. Tazz wasn't always a heel but he did seem to support the hardcore stuff more than Styles. Honestly ever since WWE moved Joey Styles to wwe.com and JR took time off the announcing has been god awful anyway. I do think it is harder though now with Vince telling them what to do every second and the whole PG thing, I'm just sayin.

 

[Takerfan93]

Definately miss the heel comentators. When JBL was color commentator alongside Michael Cole from 06 - 08, it was gold, he even made Cole better. Jerry Lawler and JR when Lawler was heel was also brilliant to listen to. You're right, the announcers don't only lack heel personalitites, but they lack personalities full stop. Without JR it has got so awful. My opinion, they should do whatever they can to bring JBL back as a commentator. Or what they could have even made Ric Flair a commentator after his retirement, he's always been so great to listen to on the mic, but obviously that won't happen now.

 

[#hamler]

I am all for going back to face/heel commentators, for the added realism, for the added drama that goes on between the two, and simply for the added comedy. Who could ever forget Heenan’s classic lines such as “See them two women in the front row wearing the same outfit?…. Oh, that’s one BIG woman.” You just don’t get material like that anymore. How can you not hate a wrestler who a commentator like that is sticking up for? The closest thing to that the WWE has is Michael Cole, and that really is poor. I would love to see Cole go all out heel on the broadcast he has the capabilities to sound intelligent (Like Striker) and have the whole “WWE Universe” hate his guts and the wrestlers he could stick up for. He's easily one of the most hated people in the company anyway. I'd imagine the remarks he made about Daniel Bryan will work great to draw fan support or sympathy towards Bryan, and can you even imagine the pop if Bryan ever locked Cole up in a submission?
Suggestions
-Jim Ross (Face), Micheal Cole (Heel), and Jerry Lawler (Heel) as a trio on Smackdown or RAW
-Bret Hart (Face)and Vince McMahon (Heel) on RAW or Smackdown.
-Byron Saxton (who was really great) as a face and McMahon (heel agian) on NXT, because it'd be interesting to see what Vince thinks of his future possible world champions.
-On TNA, get a trio. Tenay (Face) Tazz (Heel) and "Bitchoff" (heel), have Bischoff and tazz bicker like JBL and Cole a few years back. Tenay be the peacemaker.
- WWE: Let the commentators say ass, bitch, damnit to hell, "puppies" or what ever the hell they want, and RID OF THIS STUPID PG ERA! lets see some puppies!

http://fast1.onesite.com/fans.wwe.com/user/tnahaterswwerules/profile.jpg

 

[XgringolocoX]

WWE needs to bring back JBL as color commentator. He was absolutely fantastic in the booth. Best color man since Bobby or Ventura or Monsoon. Don't hate me for speakin the truth. He's very knowledgeable aboutthe product and the wrestlers. He's quick witted and funny. I was disappointed to see him return to the ring and then retire. JBL was also great at putting guys over. So important in building new stars. This is a key component that WWE is missing. An actual wrestler commentating.
Totally agree that there needs to be some spice in the announce booth. Bland commentating just sucks...it's "vintage"

 

[Vintage]

TNA had one, and dropped the ball not making a 3 man Taz/Tenay/West announce team.

Tenay could have did his thing, West heeling it up and Taz being Taz flip flopping sides depending on what's going on would have been comedy gold.
Like him or not there is one thing you have to admit, Don West was funny and had good chemistry with Tenay being the straight man to Don's over the top heel announcing; especially the later half of 2009.

As for the WWE, they need to turn Striker loose, or let Cole go all the way. Cole would be better for shock value but I think striker was born for the role.

 

[Kayoh]

I have two words that would solve this problem for at least one brand.

Abraham Washington.

He is a BRILLIANT heel commentator on FCW right now. He is a color guy, so he would obviously need a face PbPer next to him, but he is hands down the best heel commentator the WWE could possibly have to offer. Not only does he do a great job of getting you to hate the heels, but he's fucking hilarious too.

 

[Weems2k]

I don't think anyone could top Bobby The Brain as heel commentary. Before he got all over Goldberg's jock.

 

[bxbigshow]

Jesse...best ever, hands down. Although Bobby Heenan was also awesome. Looking at some of those old matches I can't (now) believe some of the sexist/racist stuff they said. I was never offended or anything I'm just amazed at how "PC" we've come along.

But besides that, they were great heels. Never cared for the good guy, always had an excuse for cheating, always call the play by play man on the double standard when a face did a little cheap payback. I loved how Jesse used to bitch and moan about The Rockers tag team manuvers. "Hey ref get'em outta there, they only have a 5 count!"

Cole would be a bad idea considering he's been to goody goody for so long. I doubt the fans would bye it. And honestly I think the fans (mainly IWC) wouldn't get behind anything Michael Cole does now. I'm behind moving Striker to Raw to work with King at this point.

I think Striker can go full heel and make it entertaining. He has shown he can do that while still providing insight. He might be able to pull of the concept of a heel play by play guy. Complaining that he has to promote the next PPV, and then Lawler picks up the promo to finish it. After a few weeks, King is doing the promoting while Striker calls the match with a heelish slant.

Try Chavo out, I think he can pull it off. He has the experience as a heel wrestler and can easily resurface at SD!'s announce table with Grisham, who really is bad yet better recieved than Cole. Josh Matthews is slowly developing into a decent pbp guy. Maybe he might be the one to run with the ball in few years.

But all this aside I actually wish they would just not talk throughout the entire match. I've been watching some old Japanese Jericho matches on youtube and was refreshed by the silence sometimes. Maybe have a few spots where the announcers let the match and the crowd tell the story.