Gorilla Monsoon

[Loss]

For the record, I have no problem with people enjoying Gorilla Monsoon as a personality and I think it's great that some people do. I can admit that he's amusing at times too. Where I object is when people call it good wrestling announcing. It's kind of like how a lot of people enjoy Sid or Ultimate Warrior, and there's no problem with that. But there would likely be debate if either of them were called great workers.

 

I think there's more to being a great wrestling announcer than being witty and entertaining.

[PeteF3]

So if a baseball player is bad and strikes out every time he's at bat, are they expected to put a positive spin on it and cover for him? I'm sure announcers in every field have certain things they have to get across that come from above, but surely that's far more the case in the worked world of pro wrestling.

 

It's not always cut and dried like that--and there are guys like the Reds' Marty Brennaman above who shit all over the best players by focusing on the negative all the time. Those tend to be "made men," institutions who have been with a team for decades and are pretty much untouchable, though. In that case they're putting over The Brand much like modern-day WWE, and Reds Slugger #37 or Latino Player #52 don't Play the Game the Right Way ™.

 

Still, a lot of local guys are not remotely going to come close to shitting on a player unless it's something that can't be ignored, and even then they'll tend to spin something good out of it. Player A can't hit a lick, so they'll gush over how well he plays defense. Player B can't hit OR field but will get praise for his clubhouse leadership or the fact that he "does the little things." Etc. etc. etc. Like in wrestling, some guys can pull that act off credibly and some can't, but the stuff I'm talking about is so common that it's a cliche.

 

There are thousands of not millions of baseball fans who would be aghast at the suggestion that Derek Jeter is a terrible defensive player, because he's completely above criticism and has been for almost his entire career.

[Matt D]

While I realize that Monsoon isn't great in "Good matches," or at least I think that, I wonder how he is in BIG matches. I might have to revisit it.

[JerryvonKramer]

I don't think he ever said that exact line, but I'm saying it was the overall effect / message he was trying to put out there.

 

You've also got to remember that the way Vince promoted virtually everyone on the roster was pretty over already. When you've got action figures, cartoons, entrance music, vignettes, hot angles and so on, a lot of the work is already done. JR and Tony were trying to make new stars, they had to be a bit more protective of guys like Sting. Monsoon had a luxury that they didn't -- everyone was a "superstar" already, this is the WWF, it's the BEST PLACE. And so he could hold them to seemingly impossible standards.

 

I'm not saying he wasn't lazy or didn't trot out the same tired lines over and over again in his criticism, but that I don't think the job required the same as what the guys in Crockett had to do.

[PeteF3]

I do think credibility is defiinitely Monsoon's strongest point. It may be because he constantly got himself over, sometimes at the expense of the workers or his broadcast partner, but in the end fans of the product tended to believe what he said.

[Loss]

It did not. And when Jim Ross tried that approach in 1993 WWF, it was incredibly awkward. So I won't deny that Gorilla fit in with what the WWF was. I just don't think he was particularly good when held to universal standards of what a great announcer should be. And such standards have to exist if we're going to compare announcers in different promotions and eras.

[JerryvonKramer]

Well we could compare him with Vince ... or Sean Mooney or ... Dick Graham, who were also announcing in WWF around then. Okay, well just to Vince then.

 

I think he loses out pretty badly to Vince. But Vince also pointed out mistakes, he did it on solo commentary working for Senior, and he did it when he was with Jesse in the 80s too. Not as incessantly as Monsoon, but he'd certainly note stuff here and there.

 

But then again, as PeteF says, Monsoon had real credibility whereas Vince didn't. I even remember thinking to myself as a kid hearing Vince "who the hell is THIS guy?" Whereas Monsoon comes across as a guy who has been there, done it, seen it all.

 

It does have its applications if you think about it. Let's say Monsoon is critical of 4 guys on a card in the first 4 matches, but then puts over someone huge in the 5th match. Doesn't it carry much more weight when he puts the guy over? Compare that to Jim Ross or Tony trying to sell us on Erik Watts as a great athlete.

[Matt D]

Personally, my issue isn't that Monsoon is a great announcer so much as that he doesn't deserve years of WON Worst Announcer Awards.

 

I'll defend Mr. Fuji as a manager too, not in that he is great or anything but that he wasn't nearly as bad as he was made out to be with those awards.

[Loss]

I always felt like there was an underlying racism (likely unintentional) to the Worst Manager category, because it was usually "won" by managers who didn't speak English as their first language. But that's another topic.

[JerryvonKramer]

I would like to talk about that too if someone made a thread, cos I think from both a smart fan and kayfabe point of view, Fuji might just be the worst manager of all time. Kayfabe-wise I've made the case before (somewhere), but smart-wise, he wasn't a good promo -- what's the point of a manager who can't cut decent promos? Then again, if it was me voting, I'd give worst manager of the year either to Paul Jones or Paul Ellering every single year from 1985 to 1990.

[Matt D]

Kayfabe wise, Fuji is the only guy out of the WWF managers of the post Three Wise Men era (the 80s boom into the early 90s basically) to actually manage the world champion over any meaningful period of time (With the possible exception of Hart with Hogan but come on). That trumps a lot. Even with a few stupid decisions.

 

Smart-wise, I think he was fairly effective at ringside and had a definitely more menacing and dangerous presence than any of his peers except for maybe Sherri and frankly, a lot of his promos got the job they were supposed to do done. He wasn't supposed to be Bobby Heenan. Not great but not deserving of the award.

[JerryvonKramer]

To get this back on topic, I actually think Monsoon probably did a lot for the career of "The Devious One". He did a lot to put the managers over in general, with his constant complaining about them.

[PeteF3]

I tend to agree with Matt on Fuji. Not great, not even good. But he had two surefire heat-drawing gimmicks (the cane and the salt) and sometimes that's enough. He hasn't won any of my Yearbook WON Awards, I don't think. If he did it was just by default.

[C.S.]

I always thought Fuji was presented very effectively too. Obviously, he had significant drawbacks, but his character was believable and easy to dislike. Worst manager? Not even close.

[goc]

I notice a lot of people are giving him credit for making shows entertaining. Is that the announcer's job? I always saw the announcer as the salesman, but not really a circus attraction in his own right. The entertainment should be happening in the ring, not behind the booth. The announcer is there to faciliate the entertainment of what we are watching, but I don't really agree with the idea of an announcer entertaining people. Announcing is a means to an end, but not really an end. That philosophy leads to an announcer, whose job is to get everything else over, not themselves, getting over themselves and what good does that do?

I'm late to the party, but I think back in those days the announcer definitely should have been trying to entertain the audience. That's why so many people still remember Dusty's color commentary so fondly. Because Saturday Night was usually a boring, pointless show so having Dusty there helped you get through the likes of Roadblock & Disorderly Conduct.

[goc]

I think it's possible for announcers to sell us that everything we're seeing is good without coming across as phony.

I don't. Jerry Jarrett didn't even seem to, as he and Lance Russell have both told the story that Jerry told Lance not to hype every house show the same way, and to only act excited about the ones he was really excited about. He wanted Lance to retain his credibility.

[Loss]

So the love of Dusty as a commentator wasn't ironic? Interesting.

[Loss]

 

I think it's possible for announcers to sell us that everything we're seeing is good without coming across as phony.

I don't. Jerry Jarrett didn't even seem to, as he and Lance Russell have both told the story that Jerry told Lance not to hype every house show the same way, and to only act excited about the ones he was really excited about. He wanted Lance to retain his credibility.

 

 

I don't recall Lance pointing out that he wasn't excited about any upcoming shows, or underselling them because they didn't do anything for him. That isn't really consistent with how Lance did his job. I agree that overhype can be a turn off, but again, I think there is a way to measure it.

 

There's a difference between saying Van Hammer sucks and saying that scientific wrestling isn't Van Hammer's forte, but he looks to be improving by the week and has an impressive won-loss record. I don't think less of Jim Ross if he says nice things about Van Hammer, as long as he's not comparing him to Ric Flair.

[NintendoLogic]

Why should an announcer put over everyone and everything as great? After all, not everyone and everything is great. Even the thickest fan realizes this, so when announcers try to pull the wool over the fans' eyes so blatantly, it hurts their credibility. Jim Ross had enough respect for the intelligence of his audience to use code words like bowling shoe to signify he realized that something was completely unsalvageable. I've argued before that when someone like Gorilla tells you that Hulk Hogan is the world's greatest professional athlete, it carries more weight than when it comes from someone who thinks everything is amazing. And I would submit that getting Hogan over is more important than getting Van Hammer over.

[Loss]

Because if the announcer doesn't think what we're watching is any good, why should we? Jim Ross didn't start using the bowling shoe line until 1998. He never would have said that about some of the bad matches he had to call in early 90s WCW. I have no problem promoting the idea that some wrestlers are better than others, but I do think everything (everything!) that we are seeing should be presented as worth watching, just as everyone that we are seeing should be presented as capable. Not everyone and everything is great, but wrestling is fake - it's about convincing people of things that aren't true. That's the art in it. They should at least try to make everything that we're watching seem worth our time. Otherwise, what's the point?

[JerryvonKramer]

Did Monsoon really shit on matches and make out like the match wasn't good? Or was it much more picking up on individual errors? People make mistakes at the highest level in legit sports and sometimes such mistakes make for better matches. It's not like Gorilla was sitting there saying "oh this match is shit and not worth watching". Or was it?

[Loss]

That was how I understood the defense of him in this thread - that he was entertaining and credible because he would call shitty matches what they were. Did I misunderstand?

[Beast]

Before I was introduced to internet wrestling fan opinions, I never saw Monsoon or Fuji as being anything less than average/good. When I look back I do notice their flaws more, but at the same time that doesn't really change how I initially saw them. I find them both enjoyable.

 

On the other hand, I never saw Haku as being anything more than a JTTS loser in WWF so it may go both ways.

[Matt D]

That was how I understood the defense of him in this thread - that he was entertaining and credible because he would call shitty matches what they were. Did I misunderstand?

 

He'd make shitty matches entertaining by being Gorilla Monsoon, not necessarily by calling them shitty.

[goc]

 

That was how I understood the defense of him in this thread - that he was entertaining and credible because he would call shitty matches what they were. Did I misunderstand?

 

He'd make shitty matches entertaining by being Gorilla Monsoon, not necessarily by calling them shitty.

 

Same thing with Dusty on Saturday Night. Dusty wouldn't have worked on Nitro but he was perfect for Saturday Night and even less relevant shows like Prime because the guys in the ring weren't involved in any storylines he needed to get over, and didn't have any character motivations he needed to explain. He was just there to be entertaining as Tony beat you over the head with what's going to be on the next PPV while Jim Duggan wrestled Michael Wallstreet for the 50th time.