When discussing the attributes that make a good wrestler mic skills is always at the top of the list. Some people will tell you it is the single most important thing, even above performance during a match. Oftentimes wrestlers will sell a show on the microphone rather than in the ring. The guys known as the best mic men, such as The Rock and Mick Foley, usually connect with the fans through humor and emotions. Tonight Ryback showed me a different kind of mic skill by not being so good on the mic.
How can I consider not being good at something a skill? Maybe skill isn’t quite the right word but despite Ryback not being great on the mic I think he is still effective. To me Ryback seemed real on the mic. He wasn’t all that smooth in his delivery. He didn’t appear to be too comfortable and was not very articulate. That was ok though because in reality some people just aren’t very good public speakers. Ryback is a jacked up muscle head. Pardon my stereotypical thinking but I don’t expect him to be a wordsmith. He’s a big guy that barked his threats and stumbled over his words a bit. He’s clearly more comfortable letting his actions speak for him and that’s ok. I don’t want all of the wrestlers to come off as trained actors. If wrestling was real one would not have to perform auditions with a microphone to get in WWE. Speaking in front of an audience would be a complete afterthought and performance in the ring would be the primary focus. It would be realistic to think that not every wrestler would be comfortable on the mic. So while I don’t know that it’s appropriate to call Ryback’s lack of mic skills a skill I think it does lend some reality to the product which is always a good thing.
I see where you're coming from.
I think fans have a really twisted sense of what mic skills is. Everyone is compared to The Rock when it comes to mic skills, and if half your promo isn't lame puns and witty retorts (plus a healthy dose of overacting) you don't have mic skills. Not quite.
Like you said, it's about being effective. You gave Ryback as an example and I agree. Dude can't cut the promo of the century, but he gets the job done on the mic. He conveys the right thing.
Here's my example to further that. Mr.Anderson. Now, Anderson is someone who DOES have mic skills. He's witty, he's good at improvising, he knows what to say, he's loud, he's charismatic but when I listen to his promos I want to cunt punt someone. It's HORRIBLE. He has ALL the tools and doesn't know how to use them. He overacts, he stutters for no reason which is usually alright but in his case it boils my blood, and he stinks up the joint.
So when I compare Ryback's mic skills to Anderson's, guess what, I'll say Ryback's better DESPITE Anderson being more equipped for mic work. Why? Anderson doesn't convey the proper message, Ryback does. Anderson is following the supposed template of what make a good mic worker and he fails at it because there ISN'T one way to do it.
Savage sounded like a moron, all he did was grunt but it worked. Flair screamed his ass off and it worked, you're not supposed to do that. Rocky did his thing and hell, even Austin had great mic skills and he's one monotonous motherfucker.
So in regards to mic skills not being important, they are. As much as anything. It's just that people need to realize that there is not one single type of mic skills. From my experience, anything flies as long as you make it work. That's a lesson a lot of new guys need to learn.
There's never been a good way to do it. You usually know as soon as you hear a guy. You feel it, it clicks for you. I listen to Paul Heyman and it's nice and it works. I listen to Cena and it works. I listen to McMahon and it works. Triple H, Shawn, Jericho, you name it. Then I listen to Swagger or Sheamus, or Kofi or whoever and it just doesn't. It has nothing to it.
All those people I mentioned that "do it" for me? They all add their personalities to their mic skills which makes them unique in their own way and it works. Why? Because we, as fans, have a feeling for the authentic. Problem is, these days WWE is trying to run away from that. They don't want authentic, they want characters, they're one foot back in the 80's and the other one somewhere in the late 90's. Once authenticity becomes a factor again, we'll see more guys "click" for us. Until then we can just hope we get some good actors and even then that's not a guarantee.
Don't believe me? Compare an early WWE Punk promo to what he does now. Punk's allowed to be authentic now, thus he is good. He channels what HE thinks HE would say and it's easy flowing because it's HIM. When a ******* writer tells you WHAT to say and HOW to say it, of course you'll sound forced and not connect. The writer doesn't know you better than you know yourself. He knows what type of character he wants. Problem is, wrestlers aren't actors. They never were. They're glorified versions of themselves.
That's why everytime you juxtapose a wrestler's early work with his later work, the later is better because he is then allowed to be authentic. If Triple H was Hunter Hearst Helmsley all his career he wouldn't have improved at all on the mic.
Triple H, The Rock, Michaels, Cena, Punk all started out with gimmicks and evolved into a glorified version of themselves, and with that their mic work hit its peak. If this is done from the beginning these days, these boys would have more time to FIND themselves, thus find their sound and their style. It takes practice.
They need to look at the crowd, see what works, see what people connect with, see what works for them, what they're comfortable with. It's like being a singer, really. You have to put your own emotions into the song, otherwise you sound fake. If the producer tells a rock singer to do opera because that's what he wants, yeah, he'll sing it but it'll suck. That's what WWE does.
Mic skills are based on creativity, emotion and passion. You can't bind those things in strict rules. They HAVE to be unpredictable and completely free in order to allow a flow of creativity. Why they're not is beyond me.
