Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[El-P]

37 minutes ago, Mad Dog said:

It makes for great commentary and gets you through the grind of some of the matches. But Taz the character shouldn't have fun. 

It's funny because it goes back to the stuff I was saying in the Corny thread about Matt Jackson and in a more broader way about should X do Y if it doesn't fit his "character/gimmick". And my answer basically is : if it adds something positive, yes of course. Which is also part of why the whole "character work" talking point to me is usually overstated.

I mean, we should have a less fun announcing team with Taz not straying at all from what his character is "supposed to be", with the preconception that he should not have fun at all, which is dubious to me anyway because why not ? He can be pissed when he's talking business but that doesn't mean he should not have fun when he's announcing. 

Plus, really, one can argue it hurts his character a bit *in theory*, but does it really ? I mean, does anyone takes Taz less seriously as a heel manager because he's having fun with Excalibur on Dark ? I mean, really, honestly, in 2021, I don't think the audience has that much of a one track mind. They are willing to play along. I mean, you said it yourself, it makes for great commentary (and FUN commentary, which is something that is a bit forgotten sometimes these days), so to me that's the end of the story. I take great commentary (or a great spot) over a stricter "character work" (which by definition is too reducive and attached to a gimmick or stereotype) any day of the week.

On the matter of putting fun in announcing, it's why I still enjoyed Heenan in WCW most of the time, because he made things fun, and sometime when the matches or angles aren't that good, the announcing just makes the TV easy to watch anyway, whereas if it's way too serious, well, it just falls on its face or is plain boring.

[Migs]

Gorilla and Bobby are funny together. You're more likely to get a laugh from them than a lot of other teams. But there's also a reason why Jesse got the call for SNME and for PPVs. He was far better at getting over the characters and the stories. I feel like you can really judge a heel color man by the way, in Jesse's mold, they have set of principles and can recognize things they like in babyfaces, or the way they have a real connection to some of the heels more than others. (Don Callis fits that mold now. I also found El Phantasmo pretty good at that when he was on NJPW color commentary recently.)

With Jesse in WCW, it's almost hard to accurately judge him because things were frequently so dire before he got there. They often had no color commentators at all (I cannot take solo Jim Ross, it's just a neverending stream of football references), really dire ones, or guys that were really only good for a laugh (I like Ross and Paul E together roughly the same way I like Gorilla and Bobby). So Ventura is a huge upgrade, even if he's not at his best. I personally really like him and Tony together, great natural chemistry from the start, they're terrific together on the '92 Worldwides.

[El-P]

40 minutes ago, Migs said:

They often had no color commentators at all (I cannot take solo Jim Ross, it's just a neverending stream of football references),

There's this period in WCW, maybe when Watts was back, and Ross was full-on college football mode, he was legit unbearable. That's the thing with JR, you can talk about his peak work all you want, but he's been extremely hit and miss forever, alterning phase of being really good and phases of down right sucking (the UWF period strikes me as another one terrible JR phase, although it's been probably 15 years since I watched any of this).

[William Bologna]

I went looking for some Dick Murdoch content, and I found Murdoch vs. Steve Williams (which was great). Ross immediately - immediately - started talking about football. It wouldn't have been any different if it had been Ed Ferrara doing commentary.

[JRH]

In hindsight, it's good that Jesse left WWF when he did, since by 1991, the more absurd heels like Berzerker, Repo Man, IRS, Mountie, etc. started coming in, and I cant really see Jesse being able to put them over the way Heenan, who focused more on comedy, could (not to mention that Jesse likely wouldnt care for the Iraqi sympathizer gimmick of Slaughter). 

[flyonthewall2983]

Jesse was good in WCW for me because more often than not he'd just call the action and not defend the heel's motives. He'd put over the excitement of the match than the heel/babyface dynamics, which could only help the product as a whole. Heenan could be like that too, especially in WCW. To me, those two are closer in styles than someone like Jerry Lawler when he first started announcing. All he did was cheer the heels and dismiss the babyfaces, until they put him with Jim Ross and more of the things that got him over on the mic in Memphis started showing up in his commentary finally, instead of the goofy "burger king" bad guy he was in the mid-90's. 

Didn't Jesse come up with the idea of an Iraqi sympathizer?

[JRH]

Since we're on this subject of commentary, why did Paul Heyman stop doing commentary? I mean, I know the kayfabe reason, but it's odd that he never returned to the role (of course, doing it now would be harder due to him being with reigns, unless they want to do some heenan-style color man/manager role). He was brilliant in both WCW and especially in the WWF.

[sek69]

Heenan was great at being entertaining on commentary during squashes that would normally have been boring to watch otherwise. Jesse was the man for important matches, he made everything feel like it was the most important thing going on. 

[Robert S]

Jesse always was a bit of a double-edged sword to me. He often got too aggressive and too loud on the one hand, which meant that the heat that should have gone to the heels in the ring somewhat went to him instead and other the other hand he sometimes made the heels motiviation too understandable, which took some heat of them. It's somewhat like with referees, heel referees suck as the best you can get out of them are midcard comedy matches (like Jericho vs. Nick Patrick) while superman referees (like David Manning) emasculate the heels.

[sek69]

It always seemed like you could tell who Jesse didn't like IRL since he would randomly go hard on certain people. Hogan would be the most obvious example of that. 

[Coffey]

8 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Really? I love WCW Jesse. He had tremendous chemistry with Schiavone and personality, legitimate animosity with Ross. I can't think of a moment where he was bad.

I actually think those early 90's parings of Ventura & Ross in WCW is my favorite commentary team ever. I didn't think Jesse dropped off in WCW at all either. 

[C.S.]

6 minutes ago, Coffey said:

I actually think those early 90's parings of Ventura & Ross in WCW is my favorite commentary team ever. I

I was thinking the same thing when reading this thread. The two best ever at their respective roles getting to do it together - it was pure magic.

[JRH]

As for JR being too obsessed with wrestlers's sports pasts, I was watching Clash of the Champions 20 recently. Jesse claimed that Pillman turned heel on Brad Armstrong because "he played football under Barry Switzler, that's what Switzler teaches you". I have no idea who Jesse was talking about, even now.

[Mad Dog]

He is a former long term coach of the Oklahoma football team so it was a jab at JR directly. He also coached the Dallas Cowboys. 

[PeteF3]

But he never coached for Miami-OH or the Bengals, so yeah, what the hell is Jesse talking about?

[CarpetCrawler]

5 hours ago, Robert S said:

Jesse always was a bit of a double-edged sword to me. He often got too aggressive and too loud on the one hand, which meant that the heat that should have gone to the heels in the ring somewhat went to him instead and other the other hand he sometimes made the heels motiviation too understandable, which took some heat of them. It's somewhat like with referees, heel referees suck as the best you can get out of them are midcard comedy matches (like Jericho vs. Nick Patrick) while superman referees (like David Manning) emasculate the heels.

THIS entirely, and I feel like it's completely glossed over by Jesse defenders, and this comes from someone who loves Jesse.  It's part of why I love the Gorilla-Jesse combo far more than Vince-Jesse.  Having had the chance to watch a ton of the the weekly TV Jesse just jumps all over Vince so much and it's very reminiscent of the bickering with Corey Graves and Renee that I fucking hated.  To me that's why the actual money combo for Jesse is with Gorilla, because with Gorilla you have someone with enough voice and authority to throw Jesse's bullshit right back at him and shut him up sometimes.  It's two people who acted like they were both smarter than the room butting heads.  I am not surprised when I hear that Jesse loved working with Gorilla more.  With Vince sometimes Jesse just jumps all over him and it just keeps going.  I often feel like WWF Superstars being near impossible for the Network to fully rerun really helps Jesse's case because we have little examples of Jesse and Vince besides Saturday Night's Main Event, where Jesse would put more effort into trying to be on his best behavior for the TV audience.

[El-P]

On 2/24/2021 at 3:08 AM, MoS said:

So Tony Khan appeared on WOL and basically confirmed that he was the one who started the infamous DVDVR sleaze thread 

Just listened to it. He said it was the most famous thing on DVDVR, I don't think he meant he started it. It did say he started the conversation about which member of a tag team was the best though, and you know what, I actually kinda remember that one ! It's just fascinating to think that those (old mofos) of us who were active on the old DVDVR board probably exchanged with Tony Khan. That kinda blows my mind and is actually really cool and maybe says a lot about why AEW is what it is, and we're getting a fucking FMW match next week (Mox mentioned it wasn't his idea at all and was brought to him).

I gotta say, Alvarez popped me when he asked him if he was one of those who argued that Mark Henry was better than whoever because of that match with Kurt Angle.

[PeteF3]

The screen name of the sleaze thread-starter was "Coach Tony K." It was him.

[El-P]

12 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

The screen name of the sleaze thread-starter was "Coach Tony K." It was him.

Wow ! Do you just remember it or is this accessible somewhere on some archive ? I don't remember at all which year it happened either.

[PeteF3]

A screen shot from archive.org made the rounds a few months ago. I saw it on Scott Keith's blog, of all places (I like the discussions in the comments, sue me.) Of course now I can't find it.

[Matt D]

I said what I was going to say about Alvarez' tone and comments over at DVDVR and I'll leave that there, but I'll reiterate here that there was something really earnest about how Khan described his time. Lonce vs the World driving him to defend Robert Gibson's work and start a whole thread is something very different than just being the guy who started the sleaze thread, you know?

[El-P]

10 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

A screen shot from archive.org made the rounds a few months ago.

Thinking of it, it's probably for the better than this has vanished, really. Considering the "hey, X said a bad thing 8 years ago, he should be fired and never work again" social media culture... 

[MoS]

20 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I said what I was going to say about Alvarez' tone and comments over at DVDVR and I'll leave that there, but I'll reiterate here that there was something really earnest about how Khan described his time. Lonce vs the World driving him to defend Robert Gibson's work and start a whole thread is something very different than just being the guy who started the sleaze thread, you know?

Can you at least link us to what you said please

[MoS]

31 minutes ago, El-P said:

Wow ! Do you just remember it or is this accessible somewhere on some archive ? I don't remember at all which year it happened either.

Here, eat your heart out. Imo, it's definitely him. And I am delighted that the biggest competition and scare Vince has had in this millennium is a DVDVR shitposter and PWO lurker

[El-P]

Thanks ! That's amazing ! Wow, 2004 ! I thought it was a bit later but nope, the old green board.

7 minutes ago, MoS said:

And I am delighted that the biggest competition and scare Vince has had in this millennium is a DVDVR shitposter and PWO lurker

Yeah, it's like basically "He's one of us." And it's funny, because when sometime I joke that AEW is booking "for me" (not always, but it has happened), there's something to this. I was listening to the Mox interview and it's the same thing, he's talking about how the first time he saw Terry Funk was on ECW TV and then he saw those clips of the death match tournament in Japan on WWF TV (I think during the great JR interview of Mankind), and from then he bought the tapes of the IWA tournament. I can totally relate because I did exactly the same thing. People complain that there aren't "bigger than life" character in pro-wrestling and that they come off as geeks, but guess what, that's because they are exactly like us, they ARE pro-wrestling geeks who bought tapes. It's actually rather cool.