Current WWE

[Loss]

WCW did a better job than any US promotion has in the modern era of pushing juniors for sure. But even before '98, there were things like the Rey/Syxx matches which see Rey get squashed repeatedly by Hall, Nash and Syxx with no retribution. Similar things happened with Juventud Guerrera. His debut saw Gene Okerlund yelling at him for having bad English. The announcers also used Tenay as a crutch instead of being expected to learn how to call their matches.

 

And actually, crossing over to the US and TV titles was a Terry Taylor move.

 

And yes, it fell off the rails in '99, as did the entire promotion.

[Bierschwale]

I might be alone in this, but I always thought the X-Division was promoted & pushed pretty damn well in TNA's early stages. That whole post weekly PPV but pre-Spike deal... where were they airing? Something with Fox? TNN? Hell, I don't remember. But then. 2004-2006 or so.

 

They first had the Impact deal with FSN, yeah. Of course, they had the really easy out of specifying that the division wasn't about weight, it was about style, so they could just throw indie guys of any weight together, most obviously Joe.

 

The announcers also used Tenay as a crutch instead of being expected to learn how to call their matches.

 

There's at least a few matches, sticking out in front because I just watched it a few days ago like Rey-Super Calo at FB '96, where Dusty seems completely fascinated by what makes high-flying lucha different from technical lucha or puro or the classic American LHW style or "the hybrid style, if you weel" and bugs Mike about all of these specific details, which is actually kind of awesome.

 

I also watched Pantera-TAKA from No Way Out '98 a few days ago, with DOUBLE LAWLER commentary because Brian and Taka were feuding at the time and wanted to blow my brains out.

[(BP)]

I thought Kidd/Neville II from this week's NXT was better than the takeover match, although they had something to build on from that match and Nattie contributed by being in Kidd's corner. Neville doesn't have much going for him, but if I'm going to watch a mediocre worker relying on a couple of cool stock spots I'd take him over RVD. The crowd will turn on him when he finally faces Sami, if not earlier during the Breeze feud.

[BillThompson]

I'm surprised they haven't turned on him during this feud, because Kidd has outclassed Neville to ridiculous levels in the ring. He;s playing Neville's game, working the same style as Neville, but he's doing everything better than Neville, by a wide margin.

[Loss]

Of course, nothing Bobby or Dusty ever did at the booth was nearly as infuriating as Curt Hennig calling the AJW match at Survivor Series '95.

[El-P]

And actually, crossing over to the US and TV titles was a Terry Taylor move.

 

Sullvan sure took credit for putting the US title on Dean in 1997 in his Timeline interview.

 

I wonder if the whole Terry Taylor "workrate friendly" booking hasn't been overstated over the years anyway.

[The Chief]

A Cruiserweight or Light Heavyweight Division is at least something that can be easily defined, what the hell is an X-Division supposed to be? How do you explain that to a casual fan? Makes no sense from a kayfabe perspective either, the guys competing for the world title are ok, but the X-Division is where the wrestlers try REALLY hard and they're much better because they do flips. You have to do flips to be in this division, think of how amateur that sounds. What's to stop a more traditional style worker like a Shane Douglas from competing there? You can kayfabe that he is above the cruiserweight limit, but how do you kayfabe explain that he can't be in the X-Division? Horrible, catering to the smarks in the worst possible way.

[goc]

Catering to the smarks is pretty much the only thing that makes sense to do when your business model is selling weekly PPVs with no prior history, no TV time and no real advertising. Of course, they didn't actually cater to smarks with the weekly PPVs because TNA.

[MikeCampbell]

When exactly did Vince get so uptight and feel the need to micromanage everything? I've been watching the classic RAW's on the network, and he's just so relaxed and having a good time with Bobby.

 

Bobby: Is (random jobber) related to the boxer Tommy Morrison?

Vince: No. He's actually getting up off the mat.

[flyonthewall2983]

It could be his response to senility.

[goodhelmet]

I always thought Sullivan did a tremendous job of booking the cruiserweights & treating them like their own separate division. It felt like a different breed or different class of fighter in the early days. And Kevin at least had them crossover into the "big" division by winning the US and TV titles on several occasions. It happened with everyone from Eddie and Dean to Ultimo, Jericho, and Alex freaking Wunderkind Wright.

 

It didn't get sideways for me until about '99 or so. Then it sort of shifted to what Charles is talking about (in my eyes, anyway). And WWE went above and beyond, taking it to that next level and just outright treating the "cruiserweights" like jobbers.

 

I might be alone in this, but I always thought the X-Division was promoted & pushed pretty damn well in TNA's early stages. That whole post weekly PPV but pre-Spike deal... where were they airing? Something with Fox? TNN? Hell, I don't remember. But then. 2004-2006 or so.

 

1998 with Jericho as champ was the peak of the division. It was also pretty hot during the entire Rey-Kidman-Juvi series that ended 1998. It felt like a serious title and when I release the 1998 yearbook, it will be represented as such.

[Petey]

I know everyone talks about how much better the HHH-run NXT is over the Vince-run WWE (it is true) as proof that Vince has lost it and Triple H has it (or at least has it more than Vince), but I don't think it's quite an apples:apples comparison. NXT is one hour per week, taped in front of a glorified TV studio audience, with no actual television constraints and will wind up having like four big events to build to per year. WWE has three hours of 'A' live TV presented in front of a large crowd, another two hours of 'B/C' TV presented the same way, an hour of 'D' TV that is no longer on TV but is still presented in front of the same audience as Smackdown AND has monthly three hour major events. NXT should come off as much better than WWE. It has everything working for it.

 

That's not to say that I don't think HHH taking over WWE from Vince couldn't result in a better WWE, but I'm not sure it's fair to cite NXT as 100% proof of that.

[(BP)]

Who produces the commentary team on NXT? I'd hope whoever it is will replace Vince in the Raw team's ear since NXT is usually superb, and at worst is still head and shoulders over Raw.

[SomethingSavage]

Regal alone is tremendous. He reaches for the comedy sometimes, sure. But his timing is precise. He never misses a beat, and he pays major dividends when it comes to putting over the physicality and action that goes on INSIDE the ring. It's something I used to really like a lot about JBL - hyping matches as big fights, noting the toughness of competitors, etc. - but almost any and ALL signs of that JBL have withered away.

 

And another guy nobody talks about anymore, Tazz, did the same thing. He was EXCEPTIONAL as an analyst for a couple of early years over on the SmackDown brand. The little subtleties he brought to the booth made for outstanding (and informative) tidbits tossed in at times. Tazz would pick up on & point out strategy, technique, differences in style, past injuries, etc. He very much helped to carry Cole through some of those early broadcasts, BOTH in terms of calling the action AND in clearly defining the stories and motivations that were being told.

It's such a shame. Both Bradshaw and Lawler are tremendous talkers. Plus, guys with the life & career experiences of Bradshaw and Lawler should make them NATURALS for a fantastic commentary team. But it falls way short in reality. The focus at the table seems all about popping each other with "inside" jokes or lame, dated references.

 

I don't mind the plugs, the pushing for Twitter, the gushing over Mountain Dew, or whatever. All that's understandable when it comes with the territory of television. But Christ. Something could be done to keep the commentary on task. At times, it seems like the ONLY time they're really dialed in is when they're beating viewers over the head with the constant replaying of video packages throughout the night. And then it feels forced, because it's like they go from lapping it up & joking around with buddies to this SOOOPER strict, dreadfully dead serious & somber tone. Michael Cole's expression goes from giggling & smiling to "just received word that my puppy was ran down in the street" in an instant, and it just comes across as phony and artificial.

 

And that's what lacks in the announcing, for me personally. There's no sense of authenticity or credibility. Even when you "accept" something they tell you, it's not a genuine "Yeah, I buy into this, because HE told me so." No one in that three-man team feels like "my" guy. Who is the trustworthy voice of reason among the trio? It's like picking the lesser of three stooges.

[cm funk]

Catering to the smarks is pretty much the only thing that makes sense to do when your business model is selling weekly PPVs with no prior history, no TV time and no real advertising. Of course, they didn't actually cater to smarks with the weekly PPVs because TNA.

 

TNA dabbled into this stuff with Joe and Doug Williams. I was a HUGE fan of the Doug Williams as X-Champ push because he didn't do any flying or high spots, it was just all technical wrestling and mat stuff, while all the guys in the division were flyers. Reminded me of Dean Malenko in WCW, where you had all these luchadores and Japanese high spot guys and Dean's style was just grounding them, working holds, and suplexes.

 

TNA did a good job with the X Division for a while. It was pushed like.....the top guys in this division are great.....they could hang with anyone in the company....and unless you're a really freakin good heavyweight you can't hang against the class of X-Division. That's how you should book a junior/cruiser/"X" division. When you get a guy like a Rey Mysterio who gets super over working in that division and is super impressive you get fans thinking "what if Rey matched up against some of the other guys?" It creates interesting matchups that fans will pay to see. WCW did it right for a while. WWF/E has never really grasped the concept or done it well. If they'd had a cruiser division they could have got Sin Cara over properly then transitioned him into working with heavyweights. They drop the ball so hard with smaller guys. And I don't think guys should be pigeonhold into the "junior" division, guys like Rey and Bryan and Generico who can clearly hang with anyone and make bigger guys look better than they actually are should be used to their full potential, but there's other guys who would benefit so much from having a division they could be showcased and get over in. When was the last time Justin Gabriel got any sort of push? How long has Kofi been in the same spot essentially just treading water doing nothing? These are talented guys who could get really over and draw money if put in the right spot

[Loss]

The worst thing about WWE announcing is the verbatim reading of tweets and quoting of earlier promos. I could probably deal with the other idiosyncrasies and not complain too much if that one would stop.

[Russellmania]

the worst thing about it is that the commentary is so generic and non-descriptive that they could basically pre-tape it and reuse it. I sometimes feel like I'm listening to WWE video game commentary

[Mini Bennett]

Say what you want about Jim Ross, but WWE commentary became shitty when the direction was changed from verbalising what the two guys in the ring were trying to get across to verbalising whatever the storyline between the two wrestlers was going on at the time. The former is what "WWE story telling" truly is. I would say the change took place roughly around 09/2010-ish.

 

The Twitter/App/Network stuff is just advertising. It goes with the territory.

[sek69]

I don't think anyone's issue with Jim Ross was ever how he called a match. In fact, I bet he could do the current storyline exposition style of announcing better than the guys they have now.

 

It must be absolutely demoralizing to the women how the commentators openly check out on their match every show. Yeah, we're probably not going to get a epic five star encounter but it just comes off so unprofessional to have your announcers just totally shit on every segment they do.

[Petey]

I just watched MITB 2011 for the first time the other night (I was largely checked out of WWE from 08 or 09 until the summer of 2013) and was surprised at how much better the commentary was during that show than it is now. The focus was more on in-ring stuff and while you still had typical WWE buzzwords and the like, it wasn't nearly as awful. And Cole was still slightly in his heel mode (although not over the top). Even Lawler didn't sound like the video game version of himself. I wonder if that was a one-off and the commentary was still largely terrible during that time or if the great decline happened after MITB.

[Coffey]

 

It must be absolutely demoralizing to the women how the commentators openly check out on their match every show. Yeah, we're probably not going to get a epic five star encounter but it just comes off so unprofessional to have your announcers just totally shit on every segment they do.

 

I was just talking with a close friend about this exact thing today. Talking about Charlotte, in NXT & how even though her expectations should be extremely high because her father was Ric Flair, they're lowered because she's a woman. Compared to someone like Camacho where his father was Meng/Haku, so the bar wouldn't be that high to begin with but was higher because he was a man. There's definitely a double-standard in pro-wrestling, at least WWE, when it comes to the sexes.

 

Naomi isn't great but she's an athlete & she has improved by leaps & bounds in her short time in WWE. But she has a big butt...so her entire offense now revolves around her attacking people with her ass. It's demoralizing as a viewer. WWE told us that Molly Holly was fat. And she was a heel because she wasn't a slut. It's shameful.

 

AJ Lee got over pretty damn well. Was a pretty good worker, a helluva bumper, a good talker. Had over a million followers on Twitter. She gets on commentary & they clown her like she's in a high school locker room.

 

Why did Cameron get a job at all? She wasn't a wrestling fan, couldn't work, couldn't talk...brought nothing to the table. First one eliminated on Tough Enough. Couldn't even name a pro-wrestling match after her "Alicia Fox Vs. Melina" soundbyte. She was obviously only there because she wanted fame & fortune. So what did WWE do? They hired her anyway...and gave her exactly what she was after. Now she's on a WWE reality show... How does that make someone like Natalya, or a woman that worked her whole life to be a wrestler feel? Or the Diva Search competitions.

 

WWE is just super sexist & they'll never put the women in a position to succeed as workers. They'll always be treated as second class & inferior to the men. That's why the Diva match is the "cool off" match in-between main events. They actually go out of their way to put that match in-between two hyped matches to bring the crowd down. Think about that. If you busted your ass to improve & then your role was to go out there & bring the crowd DOWN, how would you feel?

 

It's a damn shame. Think of all the potential female fans they could grab if they did treat them as serious competitors instead of afterthoughts, whores or piss breaks.

[Strummer]

I don't know if its because of her family name but the creative team seems to go out of their way to humiliate Nattie. She comes across poorly on Total Divas so maybe it has to do with her personality but I doubt it

[Badlittlekitten]

 

It's a damn shame. Think of all the potential female fans they could grab if they did treat them as serious competitors instead of afterthoughts, whores or piss breaks.

 

 

Don't forget the mentals.

[stomperspc]

I think WWE could do a cruiserweight division but I agree that the label “cruiserweight” would be a hindrance at this point. I am not sure what the right label would be but it should not contain the word “weight”. TNA certainly had the right idea in branding the X-Division around a stylistic difference than a weight difference even if they would up losing focus on the what the initial concept was supposed to be.

 

It is all about how the division is marketed. I thought WCW marketed the cruiserweights very well initially in two ways:

 

(1) They got over the fact that the cruiserweights did things that nobody else was doing. They demonstrated that the cruiserweight wrestlers were different from the other wrestlers on the roster but in a positive way. That’s where past WWE cruiserweight divisions failed. The wrestlers they had in the division were not all that spectacular to begin with and then they frequently lost to the bigger wrestlers. WWE cruiserweights were promoted as (and for the most part were) regular wrestlers that happened to be smaller. WCW – at least initially – had guys came off as truly unique and special. WCW did a solid job initially in reminding viewers that the cruiserweights offered things their heavyweight counterparts could not.

 

(2) The international vibe made it feel special. I think it is the Psicosis/Rey BATB ’96 match where Tony says something along the lines of “wrestlers from all over the world are coming to WCW now that we have a the World’s Cruiserweight Champion here in Dean Malenko.” When you had luchadores, Japanese wrestlers and European wrestlers all showing up and vying for the title it made the title feel special – like something that was valued. It also helped set it apart from the more homogeneous heavyweight division.

 

The second point is something WWE could definitely do. Already under contract they have Justin Gabriel (South Africa), Tyson Kidd (Canada), Adrian Neville (England) and Kalisto (a fake luchador) to provide the international feel. In the next couple of months they will be adding Prince Devitt (Ireland) and KENTA (Japan). That is a good foundation that they could potentially build on. Like WCW did at the onset, market it as the most cutting edge wrestlers from all over the world coming in for a chance to compete against other state of the art wrestlers.

The first part – convincing the fans that these guys are different in a completely positive way – is a bit harder. Rey was tremendously helpful in that in WCW because he was a truly revolutionary wrestler at the time. Neville has some great looking flying spots but he’s clearly not ’96 Rey. Then again nobody is. Short of signing someone like Titan or Mascara Dorada (I’d imagine WWE would be shy of signing a Mexican wrestler to build around after the Sin Cara debacle), I think Ricochet would be the guy to get over the idea that these guys have unique value. He can match anyone in the world for big time flying moves and has a ton of crowd pleasing agility spots that he hits smoothly nearly every time out. According to the WON, he is on WWE’s radar but was passed over at a recent camp for the usual political reasons. If they ever got serious about doing a cruiserweight division, he would be the guy to go after since he can hammer home the positive attributes of the division better than anyone else. You then push the guys around him as being cutting edge for different reasons. KENTA "invented" CM Punk and Daniel Bryan's finishers. That should be an easy way to get him over.

 

Like anything with WWE, it comes down to them not losing interest and giving it a sincere try but I think it could be done. Just give it a non-weight specific name and accentuate the positive differences (international appeal and cutting edge style) while totally downplaying the negative (that these guys are generally smaller). Also, they need to leave guys that are already viewed as jobbers out of the division which means no Kofi Kingston.

[Badlittlekitten]

Screw the cruiserwieghts. We already have enough guys stuck in a constant loop of meaningless, highly athletic matches. I don't see how creating a division that will ghettoise a fair chunk of the roster will make things more interesting, at least not in the long run.