I actually like Michael Cole, I think hes a good heel commentator he does go a little off topic sometimes but thats essentially his character WWE have transformed him into a colour commentator yet still expect him to do the play by play.
I actually think much of the problem on Raw stems from King, to me he just doesn't look interested any more and lacks the enthusiasm which was his trademark in the attitude era.
I actually think him and josh mathews dovetail quite well on smackdown abetted a bit by Booker T but he's worth his seat for the hilarity factor alone.
That's a good observation about Lawler.
I remember reading that he doesn't really follow the product anymore. Just flies in for TV and PPV, and just goes out and reacts to what's happening.
It shows, because the one thing that seems to get him going the most these days is his feud with Cole. The rest of the time, he just does not seem overly invested in the competitors he's supposed to be putting over.
Regarding Cole however, he's got a couple issues... the biggest one being that he's a heel play by play man. I've said this before, but the play by play guy's job is to put over the product, and make it something that the viewer wants to watch. When Cole (as a heel) is putting down a good part of the product, he is not doing that job. He's doing his job as a heel, but being a heel contradicts the main purpose of his role.
His other big failing is that he spends a lot of time calling out the faces on their hypocrisy, and you know what... he's usually right when he does, and the audience can see that he is. Again part of the job of a heel commentator (Jesse Ventura was big on this too, especially with Hogan), but with Cole, there's rarely a counterbalance to show that as a heel commentator, his opinions regarding the faces are usually off base. The OP said that this was something Heenan did as well? No he did not. When it came to Heenan, his observations on the faces were always so over the top that as a viewer you couldn't take what he said seriously (Marty Jannetty threw himself through the Barber Shop window is just one example). By doing this, he effectively put a more positive light on the faces, because if Heenan was saying ridiculous things about you, then you gained more sympathy from the crowd. At the same time, he also was very far reaching in finding ways to positively praise the heels, which was very transparent to the viewer and helped garner them the more negative reactions they needed.
Cole doesn't do this at all. When he justifies a heels actions, you can usually sit there and think "yeah I understand where that guy's coming from", or when he lambasts a faces actions you can typically think "you know he's got a point". The end result is the face that draws Cole's ire never comes across as the hero he should be, and the heel that Cole praises ends up being the more sympathetic one. Essentially he's got the whole dynamic of commentating backwards.
He wasn't always like this. When he was just a commentator, without his own 'character' so to speak, he was actually very good, so there's no reason he can't be again. But as a heel commentator, he simply does not work, and he hurts the overall product.
In his case, don't confuse the fact that he gets heat to mean that he's effective at his job... because his particular job should not require him to even get heat.
