funkdoc Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 this would be a bit awkward for people who know multiple languages and would pick a non-english speaker... also, i can second dylan's comment on JR. heck, during the biggest fighting game tournament of the year, there was a twitter account called FGC Jim Ross that was just doing a lot of his cliche calls except about video games. and it picked up a bunch of followers even though i don't think it was that good at all. the guy is definitely still a name! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBadMick Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 With Jim Ross in WCW, what Chad and I have found across many cards is that he can be annoying and grating and even snarky or down on the match during the undercard, especially a shitty undercard, and then he comes alive for the big main events. Ross's real value was in getting across the historical importance of big title matches and making them feel like the most important thing in the entire world. He is great in all the big marquee Flair matches. When it's time for Big Josh, not so much. I think this is Ross's big weakness as an announcer is that you can basically tell when he wasn't engaged himself as a wrestling fan. He doesn't bury undercard fodder, but you can tell he doesn't care about it and he does nothing at all to make it any more enjoyable either. Almost the flipside is Gorilla Monsoon who comes into his own and really starts earning his money during those crappy undercard matches where -- even if he's not exactly getting the action or the match over -- he's keeping things entertaining for you to make the shit watchable. Especially if Jesse or Bobby were with him. Gorilla did that stuff very well, and in a way that Ross was never able to, not even when he had Lawler to play off. When Ventura tries to push him into that stuff during undercard matches in 92, Ross resists. So there are really two versions of Jim Ross. Main event Ross is one of the best commentators of all time, he really is. Undercard Ross is a lot of the things El-P talked about. God, just remembering Ross's obvious annoyance at working alongside Jesse. Awkward! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 Glad to see the vampires started voting for Lance en masse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamthedoctor Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 I went with Gorilla Monsoon because the chemistry him & Bobby Heenan had was unbelievable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 Lance didn't sound drunk. You want drunk listen to Solie doing the opening matches at Starrcade 83. You think he was wasted during the main event matches, shit...he was sobering up during those. During the opening matches he's fucking shitfacedHow much do you think those performances on the Starrcade shows hurt Solie in the general perception? He's great in his natural environments like Florida and Georgia, two very different areas with different demands. He fronted the Florida tv for decades and TBS for years. Apparently he'd do them differently too, CWF was kind of scripted, he knew where the angles were going, parts were pre-recorded. GCW was done on the fly, he didn't know what was coming: would fly in to Atlanta on the Friday and back to Florida by Sunday morning. He fronted Continental too and worked various other places, bringing legitimacy and gravitas to things. Point is, his JCP/WCW work is a footnote in his career but I wonder how many people remember that first, especially his work on the super shows. I also wonder how much the vote is affected by the extent to which Memphis has been revisited whereas Georgia and Florida haven't? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 I really like Lance paired with Dave Brown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 No problem with people voting for Lance. I'd drive 6 hours to shake the guy's hand. The argument I'll make for JR is he was able to excel calling Flair-Steamboat NWA matches, but he was also able to make historically memorable calls for something like Austin jumping off a zamboni and tackling VInce. It was a heck of an adjustment. I know people have turned on the Attitude Era and a lot of JR's work from that time, but he became this beloved figure among the audience then just due to the quality of his work. It wasn't because the company pushed him as a big babyface. The crowd grew to love him, and it was such easy heat for heels to attack him, just because of how well he connected with the audience during that period. You can't ask for a more valuable trait from the person that's really your #1 sales guy. It's impressive he could achieve that while calling 1998 WWF which was so dramatically different from what he was calling 10 years earlier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 I really like Lance paired with Dave Brown. I'd take Dave by himself over a few different guys in this poll. Not Lance of course, but Brown was far more than just a hanger-on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 The newest commentator I've been listening to is Roger Couderc, who didn't know anything about wrestling but was unbelievably biased towards the babyfaces. Plus he got into fights with ringsiders and the occasional wrestler. Roger Couderc was mostly a sports broadcaster (although he did a few sports oriented TV games too), who was most famous for being a rugby announcer. He indeed didn't know shit about wrestling, but he was so great on the mic, with that distinctive southern accent and colorful expressions (and tongue-in-cheek humour) that he's awesome to listen to. I know Eddie Carpentier really respected him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregor Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 I voted Vince... He has the voice and inflection/cadance, he has the intimate knowledge of every wrestler and storyline that he was booking and pushing so nobody knew who and what needed to be pushed more than him. He was a great straight man for Jesse, Bobby, King, Perfect, etc. He could sell big time moments and was just about as vital to his promotion in 1994-1997 as anyone else. His commentary helped make Bret, Michaels, Austin and others seem big during a very down time. His call at Wm13 for Bret/Austin was fantastic and has had just as many memorable soundbytes as anyone else as well. The only thing he lacked at times was calling moves out and in ring psychology (best left to the color guy anyway), but that wasn't listed in the criteria. Vince 4 Life! I don't agree about 1994-1997 Vince. From when Heenan left until when Jim Ross became a regular RAW announcer, WWF commentary wasn't good. The caricature of Vince as an announcer ("baaaaaaack body drop," "he got him no he didn't") is actually a pretty accurate description of what he was like from 1994-1996. He and Lawler were AWFUL together. Lawler contributed little other than one-liners and cheerleading the heels, so Vince had to pick up the slack and cover stuff that wasn't his strong suit. As already noted, he was gaga for Shawn Michaels and his commentary probably hurt Michaels overall. And this was the height of the weak current event tie-ins, too. When Ross came in, Vince still did play-by-play but the focus of his other comments was storyline and character stuff, whereas Ross handled match psychology and stuff like that. It was a lot better, but it probably helped that the storylines were better and that they ditched the pop culture remarks. Edit: Now that I think about it, Vince had plenty to say about the psychology of the matches, and Ross talked about character stuff, too. I guess I'm not really sure why the two of them gelled, but they did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 The newest commentator I've been listening to is Roger Couderc, who didn't know anything about wrestling but was unbelievably biased towards the babyfaces. Plus he got into fights with ringsiders and the occasional wrestler. Roger Couderc was mostly a sports broadcaster (although he did a few sports oriented TV games too), who was most famous for being a rugby announcer. He indeed didn't know shit about wrestling, but he was so great on the mic, with that distinctive southern accent and colorful expressions (and tongue-in-cheek humour) that he's awesome to listen to. I know Eddie Carpentier really respected him. The only weird thing for me is when they tell a joke and they're still laughing a minute later. I'm pretty sure I've seen clips of Couderc commentating Jean Pierre-Rives, who looked like Ric Flair on the cover of an Apter mag w/ his blond hair and crimson mask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 Lance didn't sound drunk. You want drunk listen to Solie doing the opening matches at Starrcade 83. You think he was wasted during the main event matches, shit...he was sobering up during those. During the opening matches he's fucking shitfaced Johnny knows shitface levels. This has taken years to master. I thought I was a master until I started doing a pod with Johnny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 Lance didn't sound drunk. You want drunk listen to Solie doing the opening matches at Starrcade 83. You think he was wasted during the main event matches, shit...he was sobering up during those. During the opening matches he's fucking shitfaced Johnny knows shitface levels. This has taken years to master. I thought I was a master until I started doing a pod with Johnny. Yeah that last Titans by the end I was Solie calling Kevin Sullivan a druid levels of shitfaced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 I thought it was interesting at Survivor Series '96 when Jim Ross was pointing out that Austin/Bret would probably not contain a lot of high risk moves. When he said, "I think you're likely to see it all", it came off like he was defending the match when all Ross was doing was describing the style he anticipated for the match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ridge Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Ross or Russell at first seems like it would be either one of them. I admit to not seeing enough Memphis to rate Russell's impact on their group. Love the guy from what I've seen but he was also in WCW during the periods of Memphis I have seen. Ross can drive me nuts talking about football during matches. He kept babbling on about it in WCW. He can be great when he gets behind someone and repeatedly puts them over. He was always talking up Austin during his rise in WWF. Same for guys like The Rock and Triple H. But he could look disinterested in other guys. He got fired multiple times. Doesn't that hurt his importance to WWF? So I went with Vince McMahon! He gets over the angles better than anyone because as the promoter he knows exactly what is to be pushed. Could go alone and call matches himself. Had the ability to commentate and gel with a variety of guys. Can be serious when needs to be on getting over a critical angle or have some fun with guys like Heenan and Savage. Has great voice and could bring excitement to matches with his calls. He may not know all the moves (and few announcers do) but he could still get over the match action great. And even after he left the booth full-time he jumped in there for the Rock/Mankind empty arena match and was excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 I voted for Lancer.....but I think if we had more Solie from the 70's he would probably take it....the stories about his announcing back then sound awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Good lord... I just found out that Roy Lucier compiled every Puroresu News into 4 hours comps for both 1991 and 1992. Both are sitting on Youtube. Wild. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artDDP Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 I don't feel I can accurately vote in this thread. I don't have enough of a frame of reference. I didn't hear Lance Russel until a local station picked up USWA in 1995 but I did like him. I've only heard Gordon Solie on NWA tapes. And I grew up with Jim Ross and Vince McMahon. I know as a kid the Apter mags made me think Vince was a god-awful announcer. I always liked his voice and the passion he brought to the product but I thought he should know the names of the moves. I appreciate him a lot more now that I'm older. As for Ross I think the fact that his calls are legendary puts him over the top for me. There were obscure comments he'd make that I used to laugh my ass off, like when Terry Funk debuted as Chainsaw Charlie and he's running around the ring. Ross jumps up and walks off saying, "That man's got a chainsaw, the hell with this!" Even though the company seemed to want him out he was still defending every aspect of it, pushing how athletic everyone was and talking up their skills, and he'd slip in his comments about a Head Cheese match being "as ugly as a bowling shoe". I hope that WWE uploads the entire Raw when Vince accepts Austin's challenge to a match from 1998. I thought Ross was just incredible that night. He spent the whole night trying to talk Vince out of it on commentary, pointing out how the office shouldn't get in the ring with the boys and saying things like "If Vince gets hurt who the hell is going to run this company?" It made the whole thing seem real, long before it became comically over-the-top and Vince was wrestling every two months or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigelow34 Posted August 6, 2014 Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 Yeah JR was fantastic on that Raw, one of his best overall nights in WWF/E for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKWildcat Posted August 10, 2014 Report Share Posted August 10, 2014 I gotta say, I love the love for Lance (and Memphis in General) on this board. What got me hooked was turning the channel one Saturday afternoon in 1981 and coming across the Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl 2. I basically never missed an episode for the next 16 years. I feel blessed that I got to see Lance week in and week out from 81 until the late 80s (when he left for WCW) and then returning in the 90s I remember my first card (Aug 3, 1982) and was bummed to find out Lance and Dave weren't at the Louisville shows. But reading over all of the great Lance quotes, can't argue with anything. He was the glue that held the show together week after week and someone you could trust with what he's saying Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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