Hey Michael Cole...enough with the stats!

[HeenanGorilla]

I have only missed one or two Royal Rumbles, so I get that every year WWE feels the need to remind us of the history of the event. Some stats are fine, such as the record for most eliminations, longest time in a Rumble, etc. Some are reported without a chance of making anyone care, such as total weight of all competitors ever. I think stats, whether it be wrestling or sports or anywhere, are interesting...when they have context and when they tell a story.

Michael Cole. Besides most of the top contenders "drawing" numbers in the late 20s last night, Cole ensured all viewers knew the Rumble entrance order is known before the countdown hits zero. Two seconds into a wrestler's entrance music, Cole--showing no emotion--starts reading the history of the competitor, or worse, the history of that number. According to Cole, Baron Corbin should have felt good--or at least have been optimistic--about drawing number 13, because that's the number Hacksaw Jim Duggan drew when he won in 1988. Yes, that year had 20 competitors. No, what happened 30 years ago will not affect what we see tonight. But, don't let that stop you.

Also, let me say I know Vince or somebody is in his ear or has him read these, for the most part, pointless stats. But, he is the mouthpiece, so he gets my attention. If you want credit for "doing your homework", you take your medicine, when your homework for French class is complete--but written in English.

The WORST--THE WORST--stat of the night, and maybe ever, was when he said there have been 356 characters who have ever entered the Rumble (maybe 354 or something, but it was around this number). He then said, to show how hard it is to win, that ONLY 23 different people had won the Rumble. Is 23 out of 356 a low percentage? Sure...if it wasn't complete nonsense in this context. He said this before the end of the Rumble last night, which means "ONLY" 23 different people had won one of the TWENTY-NINE RUMBLE IN HISTORY. His ridiculous character count showed NOTHING. ONLY 23 because it is hard to win? As if, if it were easy, so many more people would have won it. The highest number possible at that point is 29!! So the gap between the incredibly low number of 23 to the maximum number of 29 is something that should be reported as relevant???

Look, am I angry at Cole or whoever fed him this garbage? No. But, I AM absolutely stunned that any and all stats are read to viewers (like I said, wrestling, sports, etc.) with no context.

I think of the days of Monsoon and Heenan/Ventura...they would act like they didn't know the order. People with no real chance, Red Rooster, Barbarian, Virgil...they got responses like "Oh, it's Virgil!". Were they excited to see Virgil or Barbarian? Did they think either had a shot? No, but they showed some emotion. They might mention something like "he can't wait to get his hands on the Million Dollar Man" or "It'll be interesting to see if Barbarian and Haku work together to eliminate other wrestlers." Not this awful pattern of buzzer sound, entrance music, stats on wrestler who has one foot through the curtain and stats on how this number has faired in the past--as if the number "drawn" and not the booking committee is the reason certain people win. It goes beyond insulting, it's boring!

The Goldberg spot with Brock surprised me and Reigns losing was a nice surprise, but other than that---again, ALL of the top spots drew high numbers?? Really? At least act like you're trying to seem realistic.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed the Rumble. I just thought Cole's emotionless reading of stats and that AWFUL "Only 23" stat should be mentioned.

 

[Azane]

Messing up simple things, make me question ALL of their stats.
Now, the obvious 1 night records, like Roman Reigns touching people as they eliminate themselves a couple years ago, are obviously easy to track, but nobody is doing the weight comparison (WWE's weights are already exaggerated), Triple H's time in Rumble was exaggerated by 45 minutes to make it more impressive. Jericho breaks it by powdering for an hour (He took 6 finishers, 1 every 10 minutes, and laid outside until it was time to be eliminated, Granted, that's how the entire rumble was booked, but they just wanted Y2J to crash that record)

But I totally get what you're saying, there's no emotion, or storytelling from commentary, it's simply a bunch of useless math. They didnt even call 1/3rd of the eliminations properly because they're too busy bringing up math, nobody mentions that until ~#25, Braun had all the eliminations. It's like Cole had to read his entire stat sheet before the end of the match, and it left no room to commentate.

I know that the old leaked WWE announcer memo made a point of "Know 2 or 3 interesting stats about every star appearing tonight", but when there's 30 guys, and you read 2 or 3 facts, it takes 45 minutes of an hour match.

 

[S.J. Maximus]

I truly believe it was the perfect balance of statistical knowledge and unbridled passion that made JR such a legendary commentator. IMO stats are very important when it comes to telling the whole story and building the drama for the event; the problem with today's WWE and the delivery of Michael Cole is that they feel like just saying the stat itself will make good commentary. Every single week for the last 10+ years Cole has spat out facts like a parrot and it always comes off as though he's reading an article or encyclopedia instead of telling us a story. He has no emotion in his voice, and the few times he has pretended to have emotion (Batista's 2014 return, Shane jumping off the cell, etc.) it seems so incredibly forced.

I simply dont think anything he says can come off as genuine because I'm not sure if anything he says is actually his own thought. So I don't think stats are as much as the problem as the deliverer but I will agree that the commentary was awful.

 

[Dmbfantomas]

Michael Cole has to kill a goddamn hour +. No duh he keeps giving stats. He's told to fill as much time as possible, and that's a quasi-interesting way to do it. Many of the things he said made me go "Oh! That's fun!" and I moved on with my life.

I loved the commentary last night. Loved it. King was great, Corey wasn't a fucking douche the entire night, and Cole was good in his role. I've always preferred Cole to JR though, so I'm probably in the minority there (on both).

 

[Tastycles]

I would take Michael Cole reading relevant and salient stats to try to add gravitas over Mauro Ranallo listing the technical name of every single move any day of the week.

Cole's stats last night may have been a bit full on, but in a three man team, he's there to be the straight man, and he did that pretty well.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

Michael Cole has to kill a goddamn hour +. No duh he keeps giving stats. He's told to fill as much time as possible, and that's a quasi-interesting way to do it. Many of the things he said made me go "Oh! That's fun!" and I moved on with my life.

I loved the commentary last night. Loved it. King was great, Corey wasn't a fucking douche the entire night, and Cole was good in his role. I've always preferred Cole to JR though, so I'm probably in the minority there (on both).

Funny how, in the past, commentators managed to fill an hour without having to pad it out with statistics. Go and watch early Rumbles. 1990-93 especially, the commentary standard was very high (Shiavone & Ventura in 1990, Monsoon & Piper '91 and Monsoon and Heenan in 1992-93) - indeed, many consider Bobby Heenan's calling of the 1992 Royal Rumble match one of the all time great match commentaries.

Yes they often relaid some minor statistics (Monsoon's favourite being the "no one who drew numbers 1 through 5 has ever won this thing" in '92 to highlight the unlikelihood of Flair being victorious from #3, which made no sense because the earliest draw of a Rumble winner at that point had been #24, bearing in mind they never acknowledged 1988 on tv back then); but by and large the commentary was passionate, drew the fans watching at home back into the match when many may have been flagging, and relevant.

 

[HeenanGorilla]

Funny how, in the past, commentators managed to fill an hour without having to pad it out with statistics. Go and watch early Rumbles. 1990-93 especially, the commentary standard was very high (Shiavone & Ventura in 1990, Monsoon & Piper '91 and Monsoon and Heenan in 1992-93) - indeed, many consider Bobby Heenan's calling of the 1992 Royal Rumble match one of the all time great match commentaries.

Yes they often relaid some minor statistics (Monsoon's favourite being the "no one who drew numbers 1 through 5 has ever won this thing" in '92 to highlight the unlikelihood of Flair being victorious from #3, which made no sense because the earliest draw of a Rumble winner at that point had been #24, bearing in mind they never acknowledged 1988 on tv back then); but by and large the commentary was passionate, drew the fans watching at home back into the match when many may have been flagging, and relevant.

Absolutely! Well said!

(By the way, I got a kick out of the guy who said he listened to the stats and moved on with his life--implying my life was consumed with this stuff--yet his much more exciting life led him to this forum the next day. Haha! Oh in the old days, I would have reacted with more than a laugh and had a field day--but, this way feels better.)

Anyway, you are absolutely right about Monsoon making a big deal about 1-5, when he could have gone much higher with that number. But, as you said, stats were mentioned back then but they weren't programmed and empty. They went with the flow of the call of the match.

Look, Michael Cole has been around forever and he isn't going anywhere. I'm not trying to replace him with the voices I preferred in the past. But, his way of announcing--like I said, I don't care if it is Vince or someone feeding him lines, he is the mouthpiece; he gets the credit and blame--isn't as good as it should be. Relevant stats are interesting. Stats like the "only 23" example I used and the total weight of wrestlers to ever enter the Rumble, they do nothing to enhance viewership.

 

[Twanfusco]

Agree with the OP here, though you do seem more angry than you claim to be about it haha. It's not the stats that bother me, it's having information about the guy on his way to the ring, when really he shouldn't know that guy was coming out next. Last year or year before, he was actually naming the wrestlers so quickly when their music hit that you didn't get a chance to register who it was yourself. Like he was reading it from a list. Even if he knows their theme songs so well, it would still take a couple seconds to register, especially a surprise entrant.