JerryvonKramer Posted June 17, 2012 Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 Wow, pretty cool. Summer Rae looks a good foot taller than Rob too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted June 18, 2012 Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 I was watching Rick Rude Vs. Hiroshi Hase on YouTube in Japan and I fell out when I saw that Rude's tights said "JAPS SUCK" on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cox Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 And thus ends the Roddy Piper/Cyndi Lauper feud after 27 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 And thus ends the Roddy Piper/Cyndi Lauper feud after 27 years. Y'know, I normally don't mind when Cole shits on actively bad segments, but him snorting and goofing while they were showing Captain Lou respect really pissed me off. And nothing ever really pisses me off re: wrestling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 I'd probably be pissed off too (I skipped that segment). Not so much for Lou but Cole dumping on anything Old School. Fucking guy is a parasite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 The place I was watching with, had a couple of buddies over, and they all blew up at Cole too. One actually stopped watching over it. Michael Cole really hurts the product and anyone that argues that the commentators can't help or hurt a show is a fucking moron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 It all comes from Vince. Last week Cole spent the entire legends segment gushing over Vader, talking about what a legend he was and how he looked as good as ever. Those were his instructions. My question is why Vince directed him to do that tonight. Did he get self-conscious about having several older performers out there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cox Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Maybe it was crowd reaction? Vader got a good crowd reaction, so Cole wasn't instructed to shit on him, but when Lauper and Richter came out to a lesser reaction, Vince decided to give up on the segment and had Cole bury it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Does it really matter who it is coming from? Michael Cole is still the one that hears it in his headset and says it live, on the air, for millions of people to hear. Did Tony Schiavone get a break over his "asses in seats" comment because someone fed him the line? Did someone even feed him the line? Michael Cole still takes the blame in my book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Does it really matter who it is coming from? Michael Cole is still the one that hears it in his headset and says it live, on the air, for millions of people to hear. Did Tony Schiavone get a break over his "asses in seats" comment because someone fed him the line? Did someone even feed him the line? Michael Cole still takes the blame in my book. If memory serves me right, the "asses in seats" line came from Bischoff who did get heat over feeding Tony that line. I think most people who know the deal in terms of announcers being fed their lines know it's not their fault most of the time. What's Cole going to do? If he doesn't say what he's told to say, he loses his job and Vince puts someone else out there to be his parrot. That's not to say Cole doesn't get serious go away heat or that making your lead announcer an annoying heel isn't damaging your business, but it's not like he's shooting out there. By all accounts one of the hardest jobs in WWE is trying to be an announcer with Vince screaming in your ear for hours on end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Hasn't Cyndi Lauper said that she regrets getting involved with wrestling because she thought it hurt her career? And Wendi Richter made some anti-WWE remarks when she got inducted into the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame earlier this year. So it could just be Vince holding a grudge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Pretty sure that was the first time Wendi was in a WWF/E ring since the whole Spider Lady double cross (or whatever it was) happened. I had a feeling Vince wasn't going to let that go without getting his digs in by proxy, but I figured they would just have Cole make fat jokes about her or something. I'm not a big "RESPECK DA BIZ" guy, but belittling a segment built around someone who legit helped build the company (she was pretty much the reason they got on MTV and were able to build Wrestlemania I) came off as a pretty disrespectful even by usual petty WWE standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artDDP Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 I'm drawing a blank: Was there a time where Jim Ross was blatantly saying whatever Vince told him to? Cole seems like he is consciously doing everything he can to sound like the total opposite of Ross. I seem to remember back in the "Attitude" era that both Vince McMahon and Vince Russo resented Ross because they thought he wasn't "New York enough" to be their lead broadcaster, or some such nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Pretty sure that was the first time Wendi was in a WWF/E ring since the whole Spider Lady double cross (or whatever it was) happened. I had a feeling Vince wasn't going to let that go without getting his digs in by proxy, but I figured they would just have Cole make fat jokes about her or something. I'm not a big "RESPECK DA BIZ" guy, but belittling a segment built around someone who legit helped build the company (she was pretty much the reason they got on MTV and were able to build Wrestlemania I) came off as a pretty disrespectful even by usual petty WWE standards. Ok, I'm not watching the show anymore, so can one enlighten me on what happened involving Wendy Richter ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 She and Cindi were out in the ring with Layla. Out comes Heath Slater who is doing a anti past wrestler gimmick. He starts singing and Piper comes out. He gives Cindi a Record and Heath talks trash again. Cindi then hits slater over the head and busts him open. All during this, Michael Cole was playing the heel and making snide remarks/laughing. It was pretty bad so I had it on mute the whole time and missed Cole talking. I'm surprised Wendi even did it given that she bashed the WWE hall of fame a couple weeks ago with bitter Bruno. I guess it could have been worse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yo-Yo's Roomie Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 He was laughing it up all through the segment, and then when Piper and Lauper got emotional (over Captain Lou) he started the whole "I'm gonna be sick" routine. Then, after it was done, he makes this big apology on behalf of everyone involved in the show for "one of the worst segments in the history of Raw". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Sounds pretty awful. Micheal Cole is clearly one of the worst wrestling announcer of all time by this point. I would never has guessed it way back in the late 90's, as he was not good but pretty inoffensive then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 I'm sure in their eyes, all the badmouthing we do about him is actually working in their favor since he is after all a heel announcer. Someone should tweet this to Piper, see how he reacts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Does it really matter who it is coming from? Michael Cole is still the one that hears it in his headset and says it live, on the air, for millions of people to hear. Did Tony Schiavone get a break over his "asses in seats" comment because someone fed him the line? Did someone even feed him the line? Michael Cole still takes the blame in my book. The Tony Schiavone complaints were from people who didn't understand the role of an announcer and how wrestling works. In general, people are a little more informed now and realize that announcers just say what they're told to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Agreed, and maybe Tony got extremely more jaded as the years went on but look at 1994. A WCW rules , WWF sucks posters was displayed prominently for a few seconds on Slamboree and TOny just sort of chuckles and says "This is WCW" This seems like a much more natural response and is a long way from him stating “that will put asses in the seats” and spewing such venom on his own regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 How many times do you think Tony used the line "Where the big boys play" during that period? Do people really believe Eric was on the headset feeding him that line or did he just have it as a note to keep using that line at various intervals? Big turning point for Tony, in my view, is Ventura leaving and Heenan coming in roughly coninciding with Hogan and all his cronies coming in. He steadily gets worse and worse over late 94, 95, 96 until he's just utter dogshit by 98. Before 94 Schiavone is like a B to B+ announce man, but 98 I'd give him a D or even E+. Heenan by that stage is barely scraping a C+ too. While I'm at it, my honest feeling is that Ventura never goes below an A- for his entire career - A- in early 85, then A* for all his WWF run and A-A* in WCW. Even when he wasn't interested, he was still really good, unlike Heenan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 "Where the big boys play" was the official tag line of WCW at this point. "This is the greatest Nitro in the history of our sport" is the vintage Schiavone line. Anyway, to me Schiavone was still really good at least until 96. His call on Hogan at Bash at the Beach is one of the best ever (in the history of our sport). No way he was *that* bad in 98. He could be really bad on occasion, yes, but E/D grade are good for scrubs like Cole or Madden. By 99, the announcing in WCW went to hell, but so did the entire promotion. No one cared. Schiavone/Ventura is still my favourite WCW announcing team, and I'd take it over pretty much anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 I'm drawing a blank: Was there a time where Jim Ross was blatantly saying whatever Vince told him to? Cole seems like he is consciously doing everything he can to sound like the total opposite of Ross. I seem to remember back in the "Attitude" era that both Vince McMahon and Vince Russo resented Ross because they thought he wasn't "New York enough" to be their lead broadcaster, or some such nonsense. It sounds like Vince has gotten a lot more aggressive over the years. When you listen to JR's commentary in his last few years in WWE, he sounds a lot more tentative and cautious than during the peak of the Austin-McMahon run, and it's because Vince is all over him. Watch something like Austin-Foley from Over the Edge 98 and compare it to Ross calling a match from 2008, it sounds like a different person. You can't really compare modern WWE announcers to announcers from other era or promotions, because you never hear stories elsewhere like you hear with today's Vince. It's an odd quirk he's developed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Lawler seemed to get legit pissed at Cole during the Capt. Lou part of the segment. He said something about punching Cole in the face that just seemed to have some real anger behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted June 19, 2012 Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Jerry, I will be able to see how bad Tony regressed in 1994 watching the yearbook, but I am up to the Bash at the Beach show and he is great on that show staying focused and adding a lot of prospective and insight knowing there may be first time viewers. Criticizing him for saying the official company tag line seems pretty extreme to me. I just feel like Tony has gotten a really bad rep over the years for 2 years of subpar work at the end of his career yet other announcers are shielded from that same criticism. People make comments like Bobby was disinterested in the product and got talked down by Tony as an excuse for why he was awful in those later years. The tag line seems to be that Tony was at base adequate and then awful. We have not seen much from Ross on 1994 yet and he was real good in the 123 Kid/Bret match but on a consistent basis, Tony has been the best announcer or host in 1994 in my opinion by a safe margin. Ventura constantly derailed matches and angles getting over his own agenda and left the play by play man dumbfounded. Hennan was not near as good a color man in 1994 in my opinion as Tony was PBP based on what we have seen so far on the yearbook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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