I am starting to like Michael Cole!

[safeco1999]

It's actually nice to see some personality with Cole acting heelish. A lot of his 'heelish' comments are actually quite funny and true. I really enjoyed how he picked on R-Truth about his "Green Bay" mishap, and even insulted Natalya and told her to quit respecting everyone, since that gets you nowhere.

Everyone in WWE needs some sort of personality, and some guys in the ring have a ton of talent, but no real "personality", and Cole was one of those annoying guys who replaced a passionate announcer (Ross), and was quite boring.

So, I'm going to admit it, I am actually liking the personality of Cole, just like I always loved the bantering that went on between McMahon/Lawler; Venture/McMahon; Heenan/any announcer... these guys made the broadcast somewhat interesting.

Anyone else agree?

 

[rowingisgood11]

No, he makes me want to put a knife through my ears. He has no feel of a heel commentator. He just rants and rants, and he doesn't rest. He tries way to hard to act like a dick which isn't how a heel commentator acts. He needs it to come naturally instead of forcing it on

 

[safeco1999]

Well the unique thing is, he's a regular play by play guy that's heel. I cant recall too many instances of that happening in the past.

Usually, it was a neutral/face pbp guy, and a heel color commentator. So that is one reason why it seems like Cole is trying too hard. I do agree on one thing though, he does talk a little too much.

 

[Cena_Back]

Cole, the whole heel persona needs to come to an end soon. I am getting annoying and I feel that he is not making any sense. He makes me want to turn off the television. Its just getting plain old, just like the GM thing.

 

[ECWcyrus]

i agree. his screaming at r truth was annoying but i enjoyed everything he said to natalya. i have enjoyed cole being since he started as heel on NXT season 1. the bantering back and forth between him and king have been great as well.

 

[stilltippin]

It doesn't matter if any of you like cole or not, hes the best commentator in wwe right now, and although he isn't better than JR. He is much better than lawler.. now that lawler has no personality anymore.

I like him as a dick more, but ive always been a fan of his. It always cracks me up when he bashes on ppl.

 

[The Suplexer Perfecter]

Usually heel commentators are the color commentator so they don't talk as much, but since Cole is the heel, and the play by play, he talks far more. And he is doing his job if you hate him. JR has stated this many times on his Q&A.

 

[Klown_Karnage]

I agree that Cole is an easily hatable heel and in that sense is doing his job. I personally don't like him, but I'm not going to fault anyone else for doing so. I do respect him in his own right as a verbal performer. He's doing exactly what he's meant to.

My problem with the whole story is that Cole isn't suffering any consequences for being a heel. I honestly have a problem with this. There is a purpose to any villain when it comes to audience satisfaction and that is to suffer consequences. Cole has simply gone too long being protected from harm. Someone needs to harm him. It doesn't have to turn him face, just give the audience the satisfaction of seeing Cole get his smug grin knocked down his throat. Is that so much to ask, WWE? The only satisfying thing that has happened thus far regarding Cole's heel run is when Lawler pummeled him for costing him his WWE title shot.

Still, here's hoping that Cole gets a good and satisfying beat down in the near future. Hope springs eternal.

 

[safeco1999]

Usually heel commentators are the color commentator so they don't talk as much, but since Cole is the heel, and the play by play, he talks far more. And he is doing his job if you hate him. JR has stated this many times on his Q&A.

Although there is a diff between being hated for being a heel, and being hated cuz he's annoying. But i think, without a doubt, the guy has improved quite a bit lately. It's still a bit annoying when he's orgasming over A-Ri and Miz, but he's getting there... have faith!

 

[TheNavajo]

I didn't think that my first post would be in praise of Michael Cole but hell yeah, I agree he's doing a great job. His R-Truth and Natalya rants were superb but above all quite believable.

The best gimmicks and characters are always an extension of the person behind them, so getting the feeling that Cole genuinely dislikes Truth etc makes it feel real. My opinion of him began to change during the Diva's NXT series, he was hilarious with his seemingly absolute disdsain for the show that he was hosting.

Monsoon and Heenan were for me the greatest broadcasting double act but if Cole can keep it up and develop then he can go on to be held in the same regard. I am officially a "Cole Miner"

 

[Skairipa Matrix]

i hate cole so much! he annoys the hell out of me and its not in a heel way its just i cant stand him hes a shitty announcer he makes alot of mistakes and hes just a complete dick! thats not being a good heel its just annoying litteraly today for the first time EVER i had to mute RAW because him and alex reily together on commentary was just giving me a massive migrane!

 

[boodydag]

Man, I think Cole is great. I don't think the Miz would be over like he is if it weren't for Cole. Cole has developed a great balance between play by play and heelish, outlandish comments that are usually true and based in fact. That is very entertaining to me. I'm so glad he has found his niche, as the babyface Cole was pretty bad, but as a heel he has so much more depth and color than he has ever had. I'm a big fan. He seems like he is having so much fun doing it. He is entertaining and colorful but he still focuses enough on getting the talent over before himself. Cole is a smart guy who has finally nailed it and he's getting even better every Monday night. The Best of Cole's heel play by play maybe yet to come.

 

[ChrisNutter]

I have to say, I do not like Cole, he seems to be pushing it too hard to try and be a Heel and it is too over the top for me. I just can't get into him as a heel. I know they are trying to set up for the match with Lawler and Cole for Wrestlemania but it isn't really working in my mind.

He should take some notes from Jerry Lawler, back when Lawler and Jim Ross were the announcers around the time of the Corporation, Lawler was a great heel announcer at the time and really made you not like him at all and was believable.

Also a really good time to look at Jerry Lawler's commentary, is right around 1993, when he was a color commentator with Vince McMahon and took the shots at Bret Hart's parent and his family as well as in 1996 when he took shots no pun intended with Jake "The Snake" Roberts and his drinking problems, or his skit with Zack Gowen in 1994 King of the Ring who portrayed Rowdy Roddy Piper.

 

[safeco1999]

i hate cole so much! he annoys the hell out of me and its not in a heel way its just i cant stand him hes a shitty announcer he makes alot of mistakes and hes just a complete dick! thats not being a good heel its just annoying litteraly today for the first time EVER i had to mute RAW because him and alex reily together on commentary was just giving me a massive migrane!

Makes a lot of mistakes? Like what? I know he used to be bad before, but what mistakes has he made lately that makes you say that?

 

[jontabs]

My biggest problem with Cole as a "heel" announcer is lack of consistency. If he's he "heel" announcer, they he should cheer the heels and tear down the faces. But no. He builds up the Miz, CM Punk to some extent, and as previously mentioned, tears down R-Truth and Natalya.

But why does he talk up Cena? Why doesn't he tear him down? Same with Orton or Mysterio. I get it that these guy are the top dogs in the WWE, but if you're going to make Cole a heel, then make sure he's consistent in praising all the heels on the roster and tearing down all the faces on the roster.

 

[safeco1999]

jontabs has it right. Inconsistencty makes Cole suck big time. Anyone that thinks he is doing a good job needs to learn how to not be a loon.

No, you need to learn how not to be a "loon"

Obviously, Cena is loved/hated by the crowd. Even here on these boards, people dislike Cena to some extent. Cole said "Cena bores me/safe stuff every week"... isn't he just saying basically what everyone else has been thinking???

That alone would make him hated by Cena fans, and lend some credibility to his rants (i.e. not everything he says is full of crap). The fans aren't stupid, and they like it when stuff on television reflects their thoughts to some extent.

He tore down Natalya because lets face it... no one really cares about the Divas. As a play by play guy, he cant tear down every single guy. He doesn't need to do that.

 

[tru_overdose]

michael cole is a heel announcer to what the miz is as a heel wrestler, terrible. they both try entirely way too hard and come off as more annoying and cheap, than effective and respectable.

its a sad shame that people want to be such rebels that they support such unarguable awfulness. there is nothing great about cole whatsoever, and youre a complete fucking dumbass if you think so.

bring back JR.

 

[StoneCold0037]

I've never really posted on here but I have to chime in because Michael Cole has really gotten under my skin. I'm all for heel announcers but Michael Cole makes me actually want to shut off RAW. I actually haven't watched a Miz match as champion in regular time because I fast forward the DVR just so I don't have to hear Cole. It's got to be affecting his run as champion because I can't be the only one who is bothered by Cole. I was on twitter and there's just tons of posts of people who just can't stand him.
I think his rants are very childlike and unintelligent. The interactions on RAW are basically like arguing with a child. You just want someone to smack him and put him in the corner till he behaves. I agree he's completely inconsistent and nothing he says is original. Really Cole, how many times can you call Daniel Bryan a "nerd"? Maybe he needs lessons from Edge or Vicki.
The only other thing on RAW that made me ever want to shut off the TV was the Diva Search garbage, and that was only a segment. Cole is on the whole show! I'm about ready to stop watching all together because of him.
There, my two cents

 

[culantro]

No, you need to learn how not to be a "loon"

Obviously, Cena is loved/hated by the crowd. Even here on these boards, people dislike Cena to some extent. Cole said "Cena bores me/safe stuff every week"... isn't he just saying basically what everyone else has been thinking???

it may be right, but the thing here is that he only said this one time since he turned heel, for the last few months he still jizzed in his pants talking about cena, orton, misterio and other top babyfaces, so that's the problem there...

i dont dislike him interely, but he often takes his stuff over the top and when that happens he is as annoying as vickie, if he can keep tearing apart the babyfaces and rooting the heels, but in a moderate way it would be better IMO.

 

[The Brain]

Cole is getting worse and worse every week. He has gone from entertaining to just plain annoying. Great heel announcers from the past like Jesse Ventura and Bobby Heenan were natural. They backed the heels but they didn’t shout at us every minute about it. It’s like Cole is going out of his way to remind us he’s heel. We get it already. Did he really need to yell ten times about R Truth’s mistake tonight? Ventura or Heenan would have made a creative smart ass comment and let it go. Cole just yelled about the mistake over and over without offering any creativity to his criticism. The main problem I have with Cole is he tries to make the wrestlers look bad. Despite Ventura and Heenan’s dislike for the faces they never made them look bad. An announcer’s job is to put over the wrestlers. Cole is just burying some instead. I don’t mind if he wants to go the heel route but he really needs to tone it down. Don’t anybody quote me with some generic comment like Cole is a heel so he’s doing a good job if you don’t like him. He’s not doing a good job from a professional standpoint. Cole sounds like some random smart ass punk that posts in the wrestling spam zone here. That’s probably why some of you like him.

 

[Ezekyo]

I loved how on tonight's Raw, Cole ragged on R-Truth for saying "Green Bay" instead of Milwaukee, then later on went to refer to the Divas Championship as "the gold" when there's no gold anywhere on that belt. Cole needs to be more on the ball if he's going to bitch out wrestlers for making mistakes (it came off not so much as him being a heel, but just more of a straight-up asshole), because yes, he has made several mistakes, too many to keep track of.

Talking about inconsistencies, I find it weird how he loves The Miz and Alex Riley, but he made fun of Riley a couple times while he was doing commentary tonight. That's another problem I have with Cole, is he's all over the place. Unbiased play-by-play man to Miz groupie to making fun of Alex Riley... if he's going to be heel, he should stick with one direction with it. You never see guys like Chris Jericho, Alberto Del Rio or CM Punk go off course with their character. They stuck with their respective heel persona, and became better and better as heels as time went on as a result.

And speaking of Cole, what exactly is the purpose of trying to get heat on a commentator? It's pointless. He was annoying enough before he became a heel. It always kills me whenever he blasts Jerry Lawler for hogging the spotlight, saying that "commentators report the news, they don't make the headlines", meanwhile he's trying to do exactly that. I don't know if that's just him contradicting himself on purpose, but I don't equate his heel persona to that of Bobby Heenan or Jesse Ventura when they did commentary. They always cut down the babyfaces and talked up the heels, without putting themselves at the forefront, unlike Michael "I'm The Voice Of The WWE" Cole.

I don't know what his idea of being a heel is, but if you ask me, it's more X-Pac heat that he's getting, because as has been said several times here, he makes Raw painful to watch, because he's just the "heel" that keeps going and going, that never gets theirs. A heel always gets theirs at some point, but Cole is not in any sort of program with a babyface, headlining an event, ready to get what he has coming to him, courtesy of the babyface. Instead, he's constantly blabbering with no end in sight, and it's nauseating. And not in an effective heel way either.

The argument could be made that the heel is doing their job if you hate/dislike them, which I will agree with, but that kinda goes back to the whole X-Pac heat thing I mentioned earlier. If the rumors of what I heard about the future plans are with his heel persona are true, then I hope it happens soon, because it needs to stop. At least make him either a manager, or GM, or some kind of on-air personality, because it's awkward with a play-by-play man being a heel. Yes it's different, but different doesn't necessarily translate to being good.

 

[stonecoldstv86]

The ones that said about Cole being too protected are right. Which if you remember Cole is not the first to be a heel play by play guy. Anyone remember Jonathan Coachman? They turned him into a heel around 03/04. Which he wasn't as much of a pain in the butt as Cole. Which Coach would get in a couple weeks of trashing wrestlers then he would get Stunner or Spear or put through a table. We would have a pay off for him being a heel which people really liked. With Cole you hear him every week on Raw and Smackdown but there is no pay off yet. Which is has been months. I know that there is talks about Lawer vs Cole in some sort of match at Mania but the build up has been way too long.

As for the people that said about Cole is trying way too hard they are right too. If you remember ever since the late 90's when Cole was just a backstage announcer people would boo him. Which just kept going. He even got a boos when he got moved over to Raw just becuase he was taking JRs place. Heck he would get boos when they would announce him when he would come out for a Smackdown taping a few years ago. So why dose he have to do what he is to get boos when he has been for over 10 years now?

Then there is that he isn't doing that great of a job. He might call like 6 moves then he will move onto something that has nothing to do with the match. Mostly kissing the Miz's back side. He will be over on Smackdown and then in the middle of a Kofi vs Swagger match bring up The King or the Miz. Which sometimes you just have to scratch your head wondering how he got talking about the Miz or Jerry or both in the middle of a match that has nothing to do with either of them.

Ok my last point, is it just me or is around the time Cole started getting a push when the matches seemed to of get less entertaining? Now I am thinking this could be we are sitting watching our tvs watching a match starting to get into the match and then Cole goes into some rant about something that has nothing to do what is going on in the ring. Which takes your focus away from the match. Putting the focus on something that has nothing to do with what is going on and can't really watch the match and enjoying it. Which as a heel play by play guy he should still be doing the play by play on what's going on in the ring and help build that story and the heel in that match not going off on some rant about something totally diffent.

 

[AlwaysHasBeen]

Cole is getting worse and worse every week. He has gone from entertaining to just plain annoying. Great heel announcers from the past like Jesse Ventura and Bobby Heenan were natural. They backed the heels but they didn’t shout at us every minute about it. It’s like Cole is going out of his way to remind us he’s heel. We get it already. Did he really need to yell ten times about R Truth’s mistake tonight? Ventura or Heenan would have made a creative smart ass comment and let it go. Cole just yelled about the mistake over and over without offering any creativity to his criticism. The main problem I have with Cole is he tries to make the wrestlers look bad. Despite Ventura and Heenan’s dislike for the faces they never made them look bad. An announcer’s job is to put over the wrestlers. Cole is just burying some instead. I don’t mind if he wants to go the heel route but he really needs to tone it down. Don’t anybody quote me with some generic comment like Cole is a heel so he’s doing a good job if you don’t like him. He’s not doing a good job from a professional standpoint. Cole sounds like some random smart ass punk that posts in the wrestling spam zone here. That’s probably why some of you like him.

I know you said that you did not want to be quoted, but I'm gonna do it as I FULLY AGREE with everything you said and wish I could have worded it as well as you did. Sure, Cole's new role is to be a heel commentator, but he is in NO way talented enough to pull it off. When the wrestling machine is working at full efficiency, the whole cast makes eachother look good. Although just one of the myriad problems WWE is facing these days, Michael Cole totally does just shit on WWE talent. The Brain and The Body both praised heels and made their discontent with faces obvious to those watching, but the way they did so was psychological, meticulous, and clever - not childish like MC. Good points, Brain!!

 

[rkonextphenom]

no u are wrong

jim ross boring ? wow never thought i would hear that! well then mr cole miner ur opinion is very lame. this heel cole was ok at best when it first started but now its just damn annoying. i hate how cole talks likes hes been wrestling for 20 years and knows everything about it! thats the whole point i know i get it but its just got to a point were its not just sucking the miz's elimination chamber but going after anything that he dosnt like!!! its just bad how much he talks trash and i know that there just building up a cole vs lawler match at mania but god damn i hate listening to him for 4 hours a week! i never liked him b4 he was a heel announcer and now i hate him now!!! good luck trying to get a cole miner shirt made by shopzone

 

[aluren]

I never liked Cole until the R Truth rant tonight. Very true and very entertaining. He used to get on my nerves whenever he makes an announcement from the anonymous GM. But I think he just needs to make more smartass comments instead of lame/dumb remarks.