Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 3

[FLIK]

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.

 

Meltzer always makes the point that Vince screaming in the anouncers ears is a pretty recent thing that didn't happen much in the past because Vince was either out thear announcing himself or he was an on screen performer and thus didn't have the time to focus on producing the anouncing. He usually likes to point out that Cole's noticably more toned down on the nights when Vince isn't available to do it and someone else like HHH fills in.

[Matt D]

I'm always torn on Bischoff. PART of me thinks that he was part of Nitro's success when he announced, since no matter how screwed up the stories were, he understood them and was able to get them across. He certainly didn't call matches for the sake of the matches but he definitely sold a big pictures, which, and let's be honest here, is endlessly more important than calling the actual matches when it comes to ratings and drawing and whatever else.

 

I think part of the failure later on was because the announcers weren't clued in before hand. So when confusing bs was happening, they didn't know how to present it.

[artDDP]

I'm always torn on Bischoff. PART of me thinks that he was part of Nitro's success when he announced, since no matter how screwed up the stories were, he understood them and was able to get them across. He certainly didn't call matches for the sake of the matches but he definitely sold a big pictures, which, and let's be honest here, is endlessly more important than calling the actual matches when it comes to ratings and drawing and whatever else.

 

I think part of the failure later on was because the announcers weren't clued in before hand. So when confusing bs was happening, they didn't know how to present it.

One thing I liked about Bischoff was the night he described Lex Luger's forearm as the same one that "knocked out Yokozuna." I though it was kind of cool that WCW didn't act like it was its own parallel universe.

[JerryvonKramer]

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.

Tony is still solid in 94, but I think by Starrcade he's already showing signs of not being the guy from the NWA years.

 

I should mention though, that I'm basing this mainly on PPV performances and clashes, I haven't seen the TV and when I get round to the 94 yearbook will be interested to see what the announcing is like.

 

Ventura, at least on the PPVs, is just Ventura. I don't see him derailing anything in particular (any examples?), Schiavone was never ever 100% comfortable with a heel smartass next to him but part of what made that relationship WORK is that Tony so often didn't get Jesse, or as you put it got "dumbfounded". It's a little awkard at the start of 93 but after a while like El-P said it's probably the best WCW announcing pairing. I think they even had chemistry.

 

For me, Heenan in WCW was never good and never clicked with Schiavone. Like for me, it comes across like they don't like or understand each other. With Ventura, there's a certain amount that Schiavone plays up to his straight man role and a certain amount that you can tell he enjoys Jesse being Jesse. With Heenan, I always got the impression that Heenan was just pissing him off and throwing him off his game. For more on this, see my long Ventura HoF argument from last year, but I think he was twice the colour man Heenan was in WCW.

[jdw]

"Where the big boys play" was the official tag line of WCW at this point.

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=...;entry=75001070

 

John

[jdw]

To me in hindsight, Tony always sucked. He sucked in JCP. He sucked in the WWF. He sucked in WCW.

 

He "sounded good", and like he knew what he was talking about, and that he had his shit together. But he really sucked. He came into matches with what he was going to sell, stuck to it, went to the well over and over with storyline stuff (not match storyline... but storyline), and was really weak at actually calling what the fuck was going on in the ring on a basic level. He just sounded professional compared to Bob Caudle sounding like an old local hack and David Crockett sounding like an excitable fanboy, so we thought Tony was good. He wasn't.

 

Actually Bob was pretty solid in an old time sporting way where someone could have called local Kansas City A's games on the radio and no one would ever have known he was any good because the national types thought he was just a local hack.

 

In turn, David Crockett's fanboy stuff was kind of Harry Carry-ish where it's annoying if you don't go for it, but there's some actual good match calling going on beneath it if you can mentally filter through it. I never liked Carry at all, though frankly most of what I saw was during the tail end of his boozing days and then his post-health issue days where he was clearly declining and not all there. That said, some folks I respect have good things to say about Harry in his prime: if you can filter the stuff that comes across as homer fanboy pbp work, Harry actually had some good game calling at the core.

 

Tony... at a certain point and ever since he's always struck me as the true hack pbp guy. He's got his storyline he wants to talk about for the game. He really doesn't want to think too deeply about what's going on in the game. He sounds professional and what he's tossing out "makes sense" as long as you don't think about stuff to much. He doesn't put himself over, which doesn't draw too much attention to himself as a clown. He puts the product over in his own way. But at the end of it if you try to think of any value that he added to it, there isn't any.

 

Give me Lance Russell or early Vince McMahon any day.

 

John

[Cox]

So Tony Schiavone is the Joe Buck of wrestling commentary, to carry your analogy one step further?

[Matt D]

David Crockett worked both in small doses and in LARGE doses. It's just if you get a middling amount of him that you have a problem. He really cared about the product. He was enthusiastic. It was his life. He cared about these people and what happened to them. There's something to that. I'd take someone who cares a lot over someone who doesn't care at all any day.

[Sean Liska]

Tony isn't Lance or Vince, but he was great at getting the NWO storyline over. He legitimately sounded scared for his job every week. There were Nitros where the NWO laid everyone out and you felt like Tony was about to go jump off of a bridge. He was also great at conveying excitement during WCW's rare moments of victory, like when Luger beat Hogan or Goldberg won the title. "Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell" is one of the all-time great calls.

 

He wasn't very good when working with Crockett - for years, he sounded like he'd never seen wrestling before. But he started to hit his stride around 1988 and had a solid ten years. I remember him doing a nice job with Flair-Vader. I don't remember him failing to get many stories over during that time.

[Al]

JDW, ever see the full broadcast of the Bob Gibson 17 strikeout game? The last half is Harry Carey, and it's probably as good as prime Carey as you'll have an opportunity to hear.

 

How important is simply sounding natural? You've all heard that excitable, high pitched announcer that's just a chore to listen to. The crew from OVW (at least the ones on the second ladder match dvd), they were brutal. At least Monsoon and Schiavone for their faults had good voices. Even if they were terrible, you could tune them out somewhat. The worst announcers (Mark Madden) have both terrible storytelling skills and voices to match. But if your voice sounds good, most fans will forgive a lot of other faults.

[soup23]

To me in hindsight, Tony always sucked. He sucked in JCP. He sucked in the WWF. He sucked in WCW.

 

He "sounded good", and like he knew what he was talking about, and that he had his shit together. But he really sucked. He came into matches with what he was going to sell, stuck to it, went to the well over and over with storyline stuff (not match storyline... but storyline), and was really weak at actually calling what the fuck was going on in the ring on a basic level. He just sounded professional compared to Bob Caudle sounding like an old local hack and David Crockett sounding like an excitable fanboy, so we thought Tony was good. He wasn't.

 

Tony... at a certain point and ever since he's always struck me as the true hack pbp guy. He's got his storyline he wants to talk about for the game. He really doesn't want to think too deeply about what's going on in the game. He sounds professional and what he's tossing out "makes sense" as long as you don't think about stuff to much. He doesn't put himself over, which doesn't draw too much attention to himself as a clown. He puts the product over in his own way. But at the end of it if you try to think of any value that he added to it, there isn't any.

 

Give me Lance Russell or early Vince McMahon any day.

 

John

I am a bit confused about this whole game analogy and don't understand what more you wanted from Tony as far as calling the moves. He calls the moves accurately and gets the storyline over. One quick example that I can recall is his calling of the marquis of Queensbury. Jesse is the one going on and on about Pittman being incompetant as a judge because he is a marine. This is a funny bit the first time but after about the fourth comment, Tony says fuck you essentailly and results back to the action and then starts feeding Jesse specific quesitons about the match and the strategy being imposed by both Flair and Regal. That is all I can ask for in a PBP guy. I certainly don't think Tony is as good as Lance Russell or peak Ross, but I do think he was a very good announcer for a vast majority of his career and I am surprised to see you place him in the awful category along the likes of the AWA announcers and Bill Mercer.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think threre are underrated aspects of Tony that aren't given their due credit. Not necessarily his calling of moves, but his sense of history -- the stats, the facts and figures. He put over that stuff more than just about any announcer I can think of.

 

Also, he was GREAT at analysing the relative strengths and weaknesses of two guys. Best example I can think of is Luger vs. Windham after Flair left in 91.

 

Schiavone always talked about wrestling like it was a real sport and more like a general sports fan than a wrestling fan. At his best, he brought out the idea of a real physical and tactical contest.

 

But he was also a guy who just did what he was told and I feel like the more he's fed, the worse he is. He sort of clams up and becomes rigidly professional, he delivers lines like they were written by a marketing department so it's really obvious when he's shilling a company line. He was a very unnatural shill, unlike Gorilla or Vince who were -- somehow -- natural shills.

 

But when he's just calling a match and not being told to sell stories, and concentrating on strengths and weaknesses and bringing up key stats and things from the past, he's as good as anyone.

 

I should mention that I just don't care about an announce guy calling moves. I mean that's something I associate with late 90s / early 00s smarkdom. Guys who thought Mike Tenay was the best play-by-play guy ever. I don't think the calling of moves is important at all, as Vince prooves every time you hear him call a match.

[rovert]

Biggest purchase since Georgia Championship Wrestling.

 

 

Source: PWInsider

 

A highly placed WWE source has indicated that the company's new partnership with Twitter (which will see them integrate video, audio, etc. into WWE tweets) actually cost the company a pretty penny in order to come on board. The source believes there was a high "six figure" pricetag that came with the partnership.

I know of other companies outside of the wrestling world that have paid Twitter as an "advertising buy" in order to get their accounts verified and also promoted within Twitter, so I would not be shocked to see that be the case.

 

I was also told that with the new partnership comes the ability to tap into Twitter for help with dealing with parody and abusive accounts playing off WWE's intellectual properties. So, if there is an account you enjoy because it snarks at WWE, enjoy it now, because it could get dusted if it crosses the line.

All this money for Chris Benoit not to trend on the 24th.

[flyonthewall2983]

Truth hurts, fuckers.

[El-P]

Two things from the Timeline ECW 1995 with Sandman :

 

_his adorable little kid giving him a hug, and you really wish Sandman would get things together and not fuck things up

_hat's off to the editor

[flyonthewall2983]

Meltzer buried the Piper segment, too.

[jdw]

So Tony Schiavone is the Joe Buck of wrestling commentary, to carry your analogy one step further?

That's probably not too bad.

 

John

[jdw]

Tony isn't Lance or Vince, but he was great at getting the NWO storyline over. He legitimately sounded scared for his job every week. There were Nitros where the NWO laid everyone out and you felt like Tony was about to go jump off of a bridge.

See... that's where we disagree. I felt Tony "acting" to what was going on, even if he hasn't been handed the script of what was going to happen. It was like he was thinking about how he should act, and toss that out. Ross by that era was doing the same, and I thought he started to blow as well as time went by.

 

 

He was also great at conveying excitement during WCW's rare moments of victory, like when Luger beat Hogan or Goldberg won the title. "Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell" is one of the all-time great calls.

It was "great" because it fit the moment, but it also felt contrived as all hell. :/

 

 

He wasn't very good when working with Crockett - for years, he sounded like he'd never seen wrestling before. But he started to hit his stride around 1988 and had a solid ten years. I remember him doing a nice job with Flair-Vader. I don't remember him failing to get many stories over during that time.

I think getting stories over was Tony's strength, but he also tended to run them into the ground. That is wrestling, so we accept it on some level. But with Tony it just felt like he was getting the story across because he was suppose to get the story across... and we're five minutes in so he needs to remind people of the story...

 

In a sense, he's a lot like Mike Goldberg. Goldy is generally good if you're a casual fan, or if you don't really pay close attention to what he's saying and focus more on the action. But if you do start paying attention to him, he's totally the modern pbp guy of having his Talking Points that he's going to get to and is looking for a way to jam them in and... lordy do they sound forced at times, and occasionally come totally against the run of action in the cage. In contrast, Joe really "reacts" to what's going on in a match. There's no doubt the he comes in with his own storylines/thoughts about the match or fighters, but once it's out of the way, it's the flow... and only drawing in those storyline elements if they actually fit the storyline. With Goldy, you almost get the sense that he's looking down at his note cards for the next item, or if something happens in the ring he's thinking like, "Yeah... this is where I can talk about he's been training with GSP... we talked about that in the production meeting"

 

Tony feels that way.

 

We also have a low standard for announcing in wrestling, just like we have a low standard for acting in wrestling. Stuff we call "good" really is shit.

 

John

[jdw]

JDW, ever see the full broadcast of the Bob Gibson 17 strikeout game? The last half is Harry Carey, and it's probably as good as prime Carey as you'll have an opportunity to hear.

I'll have to check it out. Cool.

 

 

How important is simply sounding natural? You've all heard that excitable, high pitched announcer that's just a chore to listen to. The crew from OVW (at least the ones on the second ladder match dvd), they were brutal. At least Monsoon and Schiavone for their faults had good voices. Even if they were terrible, you could tune them out somewhat. The worst announcers (Mark Madden) have both terrible storytelling skills and voices to match. But if your voice sounds good, most fans will forgive a lot of other faults.

I think we entered an era with deep voiced pbp announcers. Thom Brennaman has to be the poster boy for that.

 

I'll take a voice that's off if he can do the job. Chick Hearn didn't have as great of a voice as Vin Scully. But he made it work.

[jdw]

One quick example that I can recall is his calling of the marquis of Queensbury. Jesse is the one going on and on about Pittman being incompetant as a judge because he is a marine. This is a funny bit the first time but after about the fourth comment, Tony says fuck you essentailly and results back to the action and then starts feeding Jesse specific quesitons about the match and the strategy being imposed by both Flair and Regal. That is all I can ask for in a PBP guy.

I haven't watched that match since the first time it aired, so I don't have any recollection of Tony's call. The "strategy" aspect is what Tony typically worked on because it was Big Picture stuff that he preferred over actually calling pbp of all the action. So I'm not sure I'll dig it as much at you do.

 

 

I certainly don't think Tony is as good as Lance Russell or peak Ross, but I do think he was a very good announcer for a vast majority of his career and I am surprised to see you place him in the awful category along the likes of the AWA announcers and Bill Mercer.

Mercer was awful. But the majority of wrestling announcers are awful. Just because Mercer is a steamy, runny, stinky turd doesn't mean that Tony isn't a dried turd. Mercer sticks to you and leaves a mark, while Tony crumbles under the sole of your shoes and is forgettable. He's still shit. :/

 

John

[cm funk]

Piper and Lauper were fine in that segment, and it had a good payoff. Slater could have hit his marks better but he still came off as the annoying douche he's supposed to be. Layla really served no purpose being out there. She could have intro'd Cyndi and left the ring, but I guess they needed somebody in there to steer things (not that Layla actually did that). Wendi Richter should not have been there. Nobody in the audience seemed to have any clue who she was, she didn't do or say anything, she just stood there and distracted from the principals. And really weird when she buries WWE every chance she gets.

 

But in all honesty, Cole was the worst thing about the segment. It wasn't really a trainwreck, but his over the top antics probably convinced some people it was and thus not worth watching

[jdw]

I think threre are underrated aspects of Tony that aren't given their due credit. Not necessarily his calling of moves, but his sense of history -- the stats, the facts and figures. He put over that stuff more than just about any announcer I can think of.

I don't recall Tony being strong with stats, facts and figures or history. Granted, the WWF hated history at the time so they blew it off. But if you grew up watching/listening to any announcer who talked about facts, figures, stats and history... well... Tony was shit at it. Ross liked to name drop history, and facts... sometimes forced, but other times because he loved it. You never got the sense that Tony gave a shit about Lou Thesz if he tossed the name out.

 

 

 

Also, he was GREAT at analysing the relative strengths and weaknesses of two guys. Best example I can think of is Luger vs. Windham after Flair left in 91.

 

Again, this was Tony coming in with his Storyline and Talking Points into a match. If the match followed that, it came across okay.

 

 

Schiavone always talked about wrestling like it was a real sport and more like a general sports fan than a wrestling fan. At his best, he brought out the idea of a real physical and tactical contest.

Lots of guys did. Ross did it even more than Tony, which is why hardcores loved Ross. They initially liked Tony because he talked it serious... but it's not like Bob Caudle didn't treat it as sports. He just wasn't 80s look & feel like Tony was.

 

But when he's just calling a match and not being told to sell stories, and concentrating on strengths and weaknesses and bringing up key stats and things from the past, he's as good as anyone.

He wasn't remotely as good as younger Vince. Pop in Vince calling the 1981 Backlund-Muraco Texas Death Match and he runs circles around Tony in calling a match.

 

I should mention that I just don't care about an announce guy calling moves. I mean that's something I associate with late 90s / early 00s smarkdom. Guys who thought Mike Tenay was the best play-by-play guy ever. I don't think the calling of moves is important at all, as Vince prooves every time you hear him call a match.

See, we come at it from different directions. Vince called moves and holds when he was solo. He may not have nailed every move with a name, but he called the action when needed.

 

Also, I was a sports fan before a wrestling fan... and pbp guys Called The Action. I mean, shit... do you think if Johnny Bench hit a home run that the pbp wouldn't call it a Home Run.

 

"Well now... that was a nice swing by Bench, which will let him run around the bases and score a run. The fans are clapping loudly. Well now, that was a nice swing of the bat by Bench."

 

Or...

 

"Bench take a cut... it's a way back... HOME RUN!!!"

 

Yeah.

 

I'll give you another example:

 

MOM: "That's a Kimura he's trying for..."

 

ROGAN: "He's trying for a Kimura!"

 

JDW: "That's good, Mom!"

 

 

My mom doesn't know all the holds in MMA... or even a lot of them. But she's seen enough Kimuras, had Joe call them Kimuras, listen to me call them a Kimura, and even asked me in the past to rewind and slow mo through them that she's starting to pick some of them off. Knowing them, and having Joe call them, adds to her enjoyment of UFC.

 

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

But if you grew up watching/listening to any announcer who talked about facts, figures, stats and history... well... Tony was shit at it. Ross liked to name drop history, and facts... sometimes forced, but other times because he loved it. You never got the sense that Tony gave a shit about Lou Thesz if he tossed the name out.

I don't think Tony was shit at it.

 

Young Jim Ross was all "Lex Luger was the captain of his little league side and had a 3.78 grade point average and was the top of his under-12 trampoline class"

 

Schiavone was more like "It was 1983, Harley Race and Ric Flair, one steel cage, one title on the line ..." (see his performance for the build to Vader vs. Flair on Starrcade 93) Occasionally he'd mention things like all the title reigns of Steamboat going back to the 70s. Or bring up old feuds that two guys had had long ago. JR never had that because he wasn't with the company before 1987. Aside from Flair and Arn, Tony pretty much WAS WCW's continuity with its JCP past. And as phony as he could be, I always got the impression that when it came to that stuff, the old NWA shows and that era in general, it was coming from the heart and from real love of that product.

 

Hey, I could just be a mark, but that's one area I'd give Tony credit -- and it also happens to be an area which was more and more subdued by Bischoff as the 90s and the NWO stuff wore on.

 

This isn't the first time you've gone on about early Vince, and I need to see more of his stuff from that time, but I fucking love Vince from the SNME era, especially teaming with Jesse. I also love the sheer insane levels of hype he used to give those full run downs of the cards at the top of PPVs, especially the Survivor Series, nothing can get you more pumped for a show than Vince screaming at the top of his voice. Has a guy ever been as excited at the prospect of Dino Bravo or Hercules wrestling as Vince in those intro segments? I feel like they are an overlooked achievement of his. Going national and international? Creating Wrestlemania? Austin vs. McMahon? Screw all of that -- those intros are his major contribution to pro wrestling.

[El-P]

Frankly, Ross was at times totally unbearable with the college sports/football references.

And in 1992 when he was announcing alone, he could be a total shill putting over his hotline time and time again during the broadcast.

[Victator]

I like Tony, he was generally likable. He made boring matches easier to watch to and did not get in the way of good matches. That is about all you can ask of a wrestling announcer.