Play by Play finally hitting an all time low - rant

[bioshock]

First off I have to say one thing, the 3 hour 2009 WWE Draft show, IMO had the WORST play by play I have ever heard EVER for a wrestling show. I'm someone who grew up listen to the likes of Gorilla, the Brain, Jr (pre WWF) Vince, Venture, and others.

And for the crap I heard during the 3 hour show IMO was the worst. Why? Well you get morons like Cole, Mathews, Striker, Grisham on play by play for one is bad enough, but these guys were acting like 5 year old wrestling fans who are morons them self. I know this is PG but does the freaking play by play have to be suited for KIDS who can't even stay up until 9pm at night??? Let alone the comments from Grisham & Jr about ECW & Dreamer (get to that later).

Kane gets drafted - Grisham " KAAANE!!!1!!!"

Triple H drafted - Cole "Raw has gone to an all new level..The Game is in town" are we all so stupid that HHH has been on Raw the past 2 months, let alone a staple of the show for all but a 6 months in the past 10 years???

Striker & Mathews - during draft matches for ECW "cmon... cooome on" god its more bias 5 year old crap then when Bobby the Brain called the 1992 Royal Rumble, rooting for Flair the whole time, least that was classic, this on the other hand we get some whispers "cmon". Not once but least 10 plus times for the show. And what was Mathews gay comments?? Something like "thats just how it goes" or some shit after I think Henry lost.

During the Punk-Hardy match - Cole "King blah blah blah we should be rooting for Hardy here...King; huh...Cole; remember Hardys on Raw...King; uhh ohh...uh ya" LOL pure golden crap.

During all ECW matches - Grisham bashing it, with the "enough about ECW" and the "cmon SD needs more picks, while ECW has none" For a guy who did what 50+ ECW shows and 2 SD shows.

Tommy Dreamers match - Grisham "If Tommy Dreamer is a ECW legend...then Brooklny Brawler should be in the Hall of Fame" Jr "I agree". Well said, then again Brawler was the biggest if not the biggest jobber in WWF history, Tommy Dreamer on the other hand...Well anyone that knows the real ECW knows Dreamer is a legend, more so then Koke B jobber Ware.

Now then, we get Striker who is heel for 5 seconds and face for the next 10, King is a douche compared to what he use to be, Jr is light years above everyone though he is way to much watered down compared to his old self. Cole is the F'n WORST, Grisham never should of had a job on tv to start with, Mathews, why is he even still around? Yet hes light years better then Cole.


On Raw you can bet on one thing, Cole and his tooting of the WWE's horn "we are the most watched blah blah blah" or this is the "epicsodic blah blah" only a gay word WWE and Cole would use, and I prolly spelled in wrong, who cares.


So are we so lucky to get 6 WWE broadcasters, all faces, and PG or G rated, with a few being R for ******ed.

Mean while in TNA the crew I use to HATE, the one I use to think was the WORST old Donald corny West, seems IMFO to be the 2nd best right now behind JR, thx god for one heel out there, Tenay is still a moron like Cole, but he's not that bad.

TNA IMO right now has the best play by play crew, sorry for the long rant but I'm just getting so PISSED when I have to listen to WWE's crap, its worse then a infomercial I swear.


The Draft show last night for me just pointed out how bad the WWE is with all 3 of its play by play teams, that is one point I want to make clear on this rant. lol

Whats your opinion, who is the best, the worst, and the best team calling matches?

 

[Chadmw]

Most of your rant seems to be that the announcers were all biased for their respective brands last night. Well that's the point of the draft episode, the announcers are suppose to be biased for their own brand.

 

[TheSportsGuy1014]

I really hope that during the supplemental draft they move announcers around, I think JR needs to go back to Raw, I really can't listen to Michael Cole anymore. I wouldn't even mind Matt Striker. Anyone buy Cole. Not a huge fan of Lawler either, he was funny when the Diva's just started and did his whole "puppies" thing, but now hes just stale. Send him to SD and fued with Jericho.

 

[GNR8701]

Well, my favorite color commentater was Mr. Perfect and playcalling would be JR - but I dont think it would be good together. Best current team is cole and king by default. Matthews sucks big balls and grisham and jr have negative chemistry. Right now the playcalling needs to be fixed and this is what I'd Like to see:

Raw - JR and King. This is a no-brainer, best current playcaller and and slightly the best color commentator.
SD! - Cole and Mr. Kennedy, Decent playcaller and outstanding mic-handler: Kennedy may be injured for life and it would be better for him to be a color commentator
ECW - Grisham and Striker. Great chemistry, they really did an excellent job of playing off of each other. they are both wrestling nerds and feed off of each others knowledge and niether makes the other look stupid.

 

[Uncle Sam]

I thought this was going to be a thread talking about how bad JR is and how bad - to some extent - he always has been. He jumbles up his words, gets well known phrases wrong and sometimes just goes insane. I don't want to have to "two-peat" myself.

 

[thebigbadfox]

I have to say the world of broiadcasting and play by play callers lost one of the top people ever... RIP Harry Kalas I will never hear a voice better than yours calling any sporting event. You got me through a load of Phillies loss... now to the post... the announcers were terrible but still better than TNA and I think they should of just had one from each brand and had three people at one table... Striker is still new but is getting better, JR is getting stale without Lawler next to him and Lawler needs to go. I hope they bring someone new in from the outside world to improve the announcing not sure who yet tho

 

[CraigThe13th]

I can't believe Don West gets props in this post, the guy is a moron and his heel turn has only made him worse.

I hope Taz has signed with TNA and he takes Don West's place. He is 2nd only in bad announcing to Dusty Rhodes and his work in FCW.

Lets just pray we don't lose any more announcers then have to listen to Dusty on the main shows.

 

[waylonmercy]

I was thinking... people rave about Matt Striker, hes color, JR everyone says gets sent to the shitter... hes color, I hope in the supplimental draft they dont move JR to ECW. Then again I wouldnt be surprised when they constantly slap him in the face.

The problem with these announcers is that Vince etc are in their ear telling them to act like idiots. I guarentee you Michael Cole and Todd Grisham are really not as pathetic as they play a character on TV.

I would like to see how good they could be if they didnt ahve Vince in their ear screaming about shit to say on air.

 

[srka42]

What I think the main problem is, has to be the restrictions on the announcers. I don't wanna sound like a guy who just wants the WWE to go back to the additutde era but that was an extremely high point in commentating for guys like JR and King.

Simply put its a case of adults, working in an adult buisness, being forced to pander and play to childeren. Obviously it affects their performance.

Another thing is that there are no more real storytellers. Guys like Monson, Heenan, and JR in his prime (and even today) didn't distract from the stroy being told in the ring, but added layer upon layer of color and emotion to them. Something announcers today can't do cause their to busy saying things to put their respective companies over.

 

[Nugzy]

To say Tenay and West are better is ludicrous. In fact thats my major complaint with TNA is the commentating. They just dont add any emotion to the matches. When something big happens in TNA Tenay and West just sound like, eh, ok, Im not shocked I knew that was going to happen and it makes me feel like eh, ok, that wasnt very exciting. I think if TNA had two commentators from WWE the action would be more exciting.

 

[bioshock]

Well I think I have a right to say that imo West and Tenay are better now, I have been watching every TNA show the past 2+ months (b4 that I only watched once in a while, & or didn't care to watch) and I just like those 2 alot more now that West is a heel.

But am I saying West is a good heel? NO, am I saying West is above average? No. West still to some point sucks, but he is right now the only real heel doing play by play for the 2 major wrestling feds. That imo makes him stand out more then the lackys for WWE; Grisham, Mathews, Striker, King ect..

And to the one about JR, he isn't even close to as good as he once was, but he is still light years better then everyone else.

And Taz would be great doing TNA play by play. Would be cool if they ran with a WCW Nitro like 3 man crew, or do it where guys change each hour (I miss that).

What imo makes TNA's better now is that they just don't come across as being so damn G/PG rated. Dumb comments from Tenay yes, but G/PG no.

Has turned into a good thread non the less, seems like everyone thinks something different.

 

[Wavy Crockett]

Yeah The Commentary 4 the WWE has been awful as of late. Lawler needs 2 go heel again as I can't stand his good guy character tm. And why the fuck is grisham The play by play commentator 4 smackdown? he's horrible. P.S. Matthews nose bleed was hilarious. No spam intended.

 

[PDepew2181]

I think someone said it best in that it's hard to do the announcing job when you have Vince in your ear screaming at you. Vince was really not the greatest announcer, he was so over-the-top in a lot of ways, especially with how he sold certain things, and you see that a lot with Cole and Grisham right now. JR seems to always be able to do it his way, and that's why he's constantly made fun of, belittled, moved around, having his role "redefined," etc.

If you think the WWE guys are bad right now, you should hear the guys on ROH's show on HDNet. No passion, no chemistry, no selling, no storytelling, just a bunch of "oh my god" reactions sprinkled here and there. I feel pretty certain that I could do a better job than they do. My friends and I did our own wrestling for a couple of years, and since I have very limited capabilities in the ring, I did the play by play role. Let me tell you it's hard enough doing that without someone in your ear when you're trying to call everything that's going on while at the same time selling everything. But I felt I did a good job and could do better than those ROH guys.

 

["Cool Guy" Jensen]

The commentary on Raw last night was bad compared to your typical commentary broadcast, but that's how it is every draft it seems like. The 2007 draft, last year's draft and this year's draft shows you that. I, who do not have USA network or Sci Fi can't watch Raw or ECW, unless it's on a stream, so I actually was being a bit biased with them, cheering for Smackdown the whole time. I was disappointed that The Brian Kendrick lost, I was disappointed Shelton Benjamin lost, I was disappointed when Jeff Hardy interfered, so as you can tell I wanted Smackdown to get a bigger portion of some of the better superstars.

Matt Striker is actually a tweener commentator, as he cheers for faces, such as Evan Bourne and Christian, but he wasn't happy when Finlay cost Jack Swagger that match against Christian. Jerry Lawler was a heel commentator, but you have to admit... he was very annoying, always cheering for Triple H and Evolution.

 

[simplyphenominal]

The Announceing Was Great Last Nite And I Have Only Been Watching Wrestling For About 30 Years But The Best By Far Is Mike Tenay Don West And Jr Period

Tenay can be good, but only when he just calls the match, something he is excellent at. I hate him though when he has to have an opinion and get involved. I don't like it when the announcers have to tell the story. Let the wrestlers tell the story.

as a guy that does play-by-play for a living (not wrestling), its hard enough to capture and audience without having to tell a story. The game or in this case, the matches should tell the story.

I can't stand listening to anyone in the wwe, so even though he annoys me at times, especially at the moment, Tenay is the best right now