Commentary teams for MSG, Philadelphia Spectrum, Boston Gardens and MLG 1984-1992

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Some notes. 

 

1. From about 1986 on, it seems Vince was looking for someone to replace Monsoon longterm. Jack Reynolds was brought in in September 1984 to take over from Vince presenting All-Star Wrestling -- to me, the fact he hired Reynolds in and didn't ask Monsoon, shows that for whatever reason he wanted someone else from the get go. Reynolds was not only the host of All-Star but was the first host of Prime Time with Jesse Ventura in January 1985. However, it didn't last and Monsoon had replaced him in both positions by July 1985 as well as maintaining commentary for the house shows. Maybe by 86, Vince was happy with Monsoon doing Challenge and Prime Time, but wanted someone else for the house shows? But look at what happened: after Ken Resnick bombed, they tried to bed in DeGeorge, didn't work, tried Kent, Trongard -- didn't click -- tried Mooney, but he was better as an interviewer, and in the end Schiavone seemed the ideal replacement but he went back to WCW so Monsoon was stuck doing MSG until it stopped airing. But I really do get the impression Vince was constantly trying to replace Monsoon. Or maybe Monsoon wanted to slow down?

 

2. If you look at the chopping and changing, it's clear that the MSG Network, PRISM and NESN broadcasts were something of a pain for the crew for whatever reason. Knowing Vince's attention to detail, I think it really bugged him to have different commentary teams and all these odd commentary teams featured on Prime Time and at some point maybe in 1990 or 1991, I know they had Mooney and Hayes dub over the MSG matches.

 

3. Vince's random appearance at MSG in Jan 1988 is because Monsoon had a mild heart attack.

 

4. Lord Alfred Hayes really was the workhorse of these televised house shows, but for some reason I get the impression that Vince was constantly looking to replace him and it looks like he does whenever he can.

 

5. The hideous Bruce Prichard, Mike McGuirk, Pete Doherty combo was restricted to Houston shows and a few random tapings in 1987 for matches featured on Prime Time or Spotlight. Particularly odd is that some of these are Superstars tapings and on the Superstars matches it is Vince, Jesse and Sammartino on commentary. Which means they brought in Bruce, Mike and Pete just for those matches (WHY???!!) 

 

6. LA Arena cards were only televised on Z Channel in 1988 and for a bit of 1989. Teams are largely the same as those listed for Boston above.

 

7. The odd Meadowlands card also aired on MSG network, although rarer than one might imagine, and largely with whatever the MSG team was at the time.

 

8. Vince restricted himself almost exclusively to Championship Wrestling / Superstars after he took over. He barely missed a single show.

 

9. Ventura's debut on colour is January 7, 1985 on All Star, which means when he did Wrestlemania 1 in March, he'd only been commentating for three months, and it was only his 6th actual time doing it since they taped 3 shows at a time (and he'd done 5 All Star tapings).

 

10. A lot of the three-man teams involving Heenan are not actually three-man teams but guys subbing for Heenan when he goes off to manage.

 

[pmo]

Interesting list. Couple of things

* I think its the latter with Gorilla.  He had a lifetime contract and my guess that if hes running the show he probably didn’t really want to be handling the commentary as well.  As you mentioned he already had a heart attack and wasn’t in the best of health so probably one of those cases where they wanted to cut his schedule for his sake.  By multiple accounts he was beloved as basically a grandpa by the production team so you could see them snd Vince wanting to look out for him.  I mean Gorilla still was doing commentary until literally the end of his life so I don’t think it was a quality concern.  

* Boy Jesse was basically the Tony Romo of the WWE.  He just showed up and within a few months basically changed the commentary game.

* Dick Graham, who did he have dirt on at PRISM?  I mean it wasn’t like he was associated with the Phillies, Sixers, or Flyers.  I always figured he was doing it as a part time gig like Ed Whalen in Calgary.  Kal at least a respectable career in radio and this was clearly a lark for him.  Its just odd.

* Always wish we could have seen heel Lord Al on color.  Really enjoy his heel promos when they pop up.

* Wish we got more Bockwinkel as he and Monsoon were excellent together.  Do you have a list for the Copps Coliseum/MLG shows?

 

 

[flyonthewall2983]

Mooney didn’t fare as well doing live commentary as compared to the stuff he did on Prime Time calling prerecorded matches with Hayes. Heenan carried him pretty well on the one show early in 91 they did together from what I heard of it

[Strummer]

MSG Network acquired the rights to Yankees baseball in 1991.  Wonder if that affected when the house shows aired during baseball season.  MSG aired well over 100 games a season.

I believe Mooney and Hayes starting dubbing the shows in 1991.

[JerryvonKramer]

I have now added Maple Leaf Garden broadcasts to the spreadsheet. Do any old Canadians (my old mate Kelly?) know who actually broadcast the MLG shows in Canada? Were they broadcast at all in US or were these shows exclusive to Canada?

 

Gorilla seems to dominate the MLG broadcasts and notably much less varienty there, although it does seem like Sean Mooney was "trained up" there and Ventura to some extent in 1985. Regular broadcasts seem to get increasingly spotty from 1988 and in the final two years it is handed soley to the Mooney / Hayes "C-team" extraordinaire.

[Ricky Jackson]

AFAIK, the MLG shows were never televised like MSG, Philly, Boston, etc. That is, in their entirety on a cable channel. The matches were shown on various different shows, including TNT, Georgia Championship Wrestling, All-American Wrestling, and (especially) Prime Time Wrestling, plus on numerous CHV tapes (the bigger matches). In Canada, matches were occasionally shown on Maple Leaf Wrestling (Superstars), but I believe that mostly ended in late-86. It wasn't until the 24/7 era that the MLG shows were available as full cards

[JerryvonKramer]

I've built up a picture now of the broadcast team over the Golden Age. Strikes me that Vince aimed for a team of at least 9 on-screen personalities, 3 who could do play-by-play, 3 who could do colour, 3 who could do the Mean Gene role. 

The versatility of Lord Alfred Hayes seemed to cover a lot on what I've called "the C-team" since he could do the Event Centre updates and go on colour. He stays all the way until 1995 and is there much longer than you'd expect.

 

There are also I think two distinct lines:

1. The Ken Resnick -> Craig DeGeorge -> Sean Mooney-> Todd Pettigall line
2. The Jack Reynolds ->Rodger Kent-> Rod Trongard-> Tony Schiavone-> Jim Ross line

The Resnick line was clearly intended to be able to cover all the general duties of Gene Okerlund with any additional commentary a bonus. Recall Okerlund did commentary in 1984-7, but his chief duties were hosting All American, giving event centre updates and conducting interviews. In shoots both Resnick and DeGeorge have said they were brought in chiefly to lighten Okerlund's load. By 1986 he was presenting All American, Spotlight, TNT and doing all his usual stuff and was getting burnt out.

 

The Reynolds like was clearly intended as a long-term Monsoon replacement, since I've heard that Monsoon ideally just wanted to present Prime Time with Heenan and would have happily dropped Challenge or his House Show stuff. Reynold, Kent and Trongard are all searches for that replacement but it's really when Tony comes in that you can see it as they stick Tony on Challenge and one suspects it was with a view to phase Monsoon out. However, that didn't happen because he left. The eventual replacement would end up being Jim Ross.

 

By 1991, Mooney -- who stuck around much longer than Resnick or DeGeorge, had built enough enough experience to cover play-by-play and it seems Mooney and Hayes recorded voice overs for all the Prime Times from the debut of the new format starting February 18th 1991. You can see the January 91 Primetime shows still have different commentators. By this stage, they use a format where there's the odd match from MSG and Superstars plus Prime Time exclusive matches from TV tapings for Superstars and Challenge. It seems that by 1992, there was a Prime Time banner and someone who went live will have to explain how that worked since the exact same tapings later then have a Superstars set (with a screen). They must have taken those banners down live. The situation with different commentary teams on Prime Time -- if it was something that bothered Vince -- took at least six years to bother him. I have found one episode of Prime Time from May 11 1987 which has an absurd number of commentators (Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Bruno Sammartino, Dick Graham, Ken Resnick, Lord Alfred Hayes & Ron Bass). I watched through it and it actually helped to make you think there was tons of stuff going on from many different places, so I kinda liked it. The 91-2 Prime Times with Mooney and Hayes on commentary feel much smaller.

 

Also watching back some of the 1990 Superstars aroud the time Piper comes in to replace Ventura and Vince is JUST INSANE on those shows. The whole product feels like it is on coke around that time!

[The Thread Killer]

8 hours ago, JerryvonKramer said:

I have now added Maple Leaf Garden broadcasts to the spreadsheet. Do any old Canadians (my old mate Kelly?) know who actually broadcast the MLG shows in Canada? Were they broadcast at all in US or were these shows exclusive to Canada?

There was a TV channel in Hamilton Ontario, which had a close relationship with the WWF. CHCH TV 11.

They broadcast Maple Leaf Wrestling on Saturday afternoons and also at 7 PM on Saturday evenings for the longest time. The last 15 minutes of every Saturday evening episode always had an exclusive Maple Leaf Gardens feature bout as the Main Event of the TV show.

The amusing thing was that the main event match on TV was invariably one of the prelim matches from the previous month’s MLG house show and more often than not featured Jose Luis Rivera, Tiger Chung Lee, SD Jones or at best, Hamilton’s own Iron Mike Sharpe.

The play-by-play was always Gorilla but the colour man usually rotated. If you were lucky you got Jesse Ventura. If not, you got Jimmy Hart, Luscious Johnny V, or the truly dreadful Billy Red Lyons.

 

[JRH]

Speaking of Vince, I find it odd that aside from Wrestlemania 2 and Summerslam 90, he's absent from PPV shows until 1992, and didnt become a regular PPV commentator until WM9 (aside from that one off KOTR show with the bizzare Monsoon/Savage/Art Donovan team, which was due to Vince being on trial). On that note, I always wondered what a Monsoon/Jim Cornette team would sound like, but after Joey Marella's death, Monsoon basically became bitter and cynical on commentary no matter who you put him with.

[JerryvonKramer]

I put a lot of this into a documentary of sorts here. Good to see some old friends in comments.

 

 

[pmo]

On 10/5/2023 at 8:25 PM, JerryvonKramer said:

I put a lot of this into a documentary of sorts here. Good to see some old friends in comments.

 

 

 

This was great, really enjoyed it (although you did butcher the pronunciation of Poughkeepsie lol).  One thing about the Allentown/Hamburg tapes I didn’t realize until I moved to NJ is that you can take Holland tunnel from Manhattan and you can take a single highway, I-78 all the way to Hamburg/Allentown.  It’s only 2hrs from MSG and an easy drive so it’s really understandable why the talent was so pissed.

[JerryvonKramer]

Cheers mate, pronunciation never my strong point.

I’ve thrown in a random House Show tonight. The July 88 LA Sports Arena show. And mid-way through Rockers vs Conquistadors, the second match, Ventura randomly comes out and sits in on commentary so you have an insane four-man booth of Monsoon, Ventura, Graham and Mooney.

 

I believe this was Mooney’s second ever assignment. Before Ventura comes out he struggled to get a word in. Monsoon big timed him a number of times, every time he threw to Mooney he’d bring up his lack of experience and how he’s not knowledgeable about wrestling. “I’ve been around a lot longer than you” etc

 

Several times he flat cuts off or no sells Mooney’s comments and throws to Superstar. Tough gig.

 

Then after Ventura comes out Ventura and Graham drop all kayfabe and just talk about how they remember working out, they start up with gym talk. Graham puts over his calf work. Ventura claims Arnie was asking about Graham’s calves.

 

Meanwhile poor rookie Mooney is trying to get over his scripted talking points about the Rockers and is just being no sold and talked over. Hilarious stuff really.

This is all I do now watch random house shows or episodes of Challenge and stuff like that ha ha.

 

 

[JerryvonKramer]

Edit: Ventura’s gone by the next match which is Andre vs Duggan but then Duggan gives Graham the 2x4 to look after and Andre wants the timekeeper to have it and tells him to sit down and shut up.

 

Graham has been super fun on this show. Wondering if he’s a bit underrated in this role.

[clintthecrippler]

A fantastic video, but one thing I think worth noting on the Jack Reynolds hiring in 1984 is that he had hosted the initial TV episodes of the Pro Wrestling USA cooperative that was started by NWA promoters and the AWA to combat Vince heading into their territories, so its been a long held theory by some that Jack Reynolds was hired away for the WWF All-Star gig specifically to mess with that as opposed to being based on his prior IWA experience.

I believe also that due to many of the Pro Wrestling USA studio segments being pre-taped in bulk that there are a few weeks where if your TV market had stations airing Pro Wrestling USA and All-Star Wrestling that Jack Reynolds could be seen hosting both programs. 

 

[JerryvonKramer]

Watching August 88 LA card and Ventura joins commentary in the middle of the card again! I think him and Graham just wanted an excuse to hang out in all honesty!

[flyonthewall2983]

This must be the period when he was kind of hot in Hollywood too coming off the two movies with Arnold

[JRH]

Wonder why they dropped televising the MSG and Boston shows. Televising the LA shows died with the death of Z Channel (and showing things like wrestling and sports was a last ditch attempt to keep that channel alive), but I would have love having another WWF show to watch in the 90s (at least the Boston shows on NESN, my cable system never got the MSG network).

[Migs]

9 hours ago, JRH said:

Wonder why they dropped televising the MSG and Boston shows. Televising the LA shows died with the death of Z Channel (and showing things like wrestling and sports was a last ditch attempt to keep that channel alive), but I would have love having another WWF show to watch in the 90s (at least the Boston shows on NESN, my cable system never got the MSG network).

Ticket sales were declining, so showing the shows for free no longer made sense. 

[JerryvonKramer]

Tonight, I realised something that kinda blew my mind. I had assumed that Gene Okerlund, Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred Hayes took turns to do Event Center, but NO.

It's almost always: 

 

WWF Update with Gene Okerlund

Special Report with Lord Alfred Hayes

Event Center with Sean Mooney

 

This is the first time I've noticed this in 34+ years. Sometimes before a big PPV Okerlund would do "Report on Wrestlemania" or similar, but there is remarkable consistency to him doing Update, Hayes doing Special Report and Mooney doing Event Center at least from 1988 to 1993.

 

WWF Update seems to have started as a segment in 1984 with Vince himself doing them, but pretty soon he was replaced by Lord Alfred Hayes doing it from a desk with a WWF mug next to him, but from 86 it seems like Gene takes over and it is a large part of the show once Superstars and Challenge start. Gene is sometimes at a desk in front of a green screen but most of the time he's standing with the monitors from the control room at an angle behind him, desk on a phone by his side, often you can see one or two staff members there. in 1987, Craig DeGeorge takes over with a blue backdrop which has the month prominently displayed and this lasts until about April 88 even though DeGeorge is still there. Update then moves back to the 86 Gene presenation. This seems pretty consistent until he leaves in 93. Update tends to be focused on one particular feud or angle, some key event happened at a house show, something like that. Update is often "brought to you from the pages of the WWF Magazine". After Gene left, Lord Al and Monsoon did most of them.

 

Special Report, as far as I can see, is nearly identical to Update only it's Lord Al there and the desk has some merchandise on it. It's always focused on one particular feud or angle. I've found a couple of Special Reports from 87 where it's DeGeorge in place of Hayes, but it's mostly Hayes from 88 to whenever he leaves in the mid-90s. Special Report is often "brought to you" by the latest VHS release.

 

I believe Event Center was introduced in 1987 as a brainchild of Bruce Pritchard to replace all of the localised market promos Gene Okerlund would have to do on the road. I have found a few odd ones with Billy Red Lyons and Raymond Rougeau from 1987 but it is almost exclusively the domain of Sean Mooney. These effectively replaced the promo interivews done by Okerlund, Resnick, DeGeorge and others in front of the big blue backdrop. Event Center is Mooney hyping an upcoming live card with insert promos from one of the matches. There would be 3 Event Centers per show hyping the same card. Usually a big house show such as MSG, Boston Garden etc, but these were localised -- so Mooney would do several versions to go out in different markets. This was recorded with Mooney at a desk in front of the same monitors used in Update and Special Report, it's just shot at a different angle.

[PeteF3]

The Event Center started with the first TVs after WrestleMania 4. Lyons and Rougeau did the ones for Canada (and Lyons did local interviews for Canada as well). And yes, the Event Centers allowed the wrestlers to cut one generic promo for most markets while Mooney did the grunt work (but at least got to sit down while doing it). On some occasions you would get market-specific promos: New York, Boston, and Canada mostly, or if a market was getting a unique match (Hogan/Boss Man vs. the Powers of Pain comes to mind). If there was no upcoming house show in the market, you'd get wrestlers cutting generic promos putting themselves over, or Event Centers for the upcoming PPV. This also applied to the Event Centers that aired on cable.

Around Mania 9 there's another shift: Mooney leaves, and around that time Gene mostly goes back to doing the Event Center and Gorilla starts doing Update. In the summer of '93, in an attempt to drive up house shows, they switch from the Event Center to "Face to Face" with both wrestlers in the match or feud cutting promos on each other, or having an actual conversation with the host. Gene did this up until his departure and then it was taken over by various folks including Joe Fowler and J.R. I think this lasted for a year or so before getting replaced by Live Event News which was essentially a dressed-up Event Center (with more graphics and background music).

[JRH]

Another thing about  Special Report is that around mid-1993 Hayes inexplicably turned heel and sided with the heels during the  segments.

[SirEdger]

That would match the timeline where Lord Alfred also did some French color commentary with Raymond Rougeau and he was heel as well.

[Johnny Sorrow]

1 hour ago, JRH said:

Another thing about  Special Report is that around mid-1993 Hayes inexplicably turned heel and sided with the heels during the  segments.

English guy inexplicably turns heel, you say?

[JRH]

Personally, I miss the custom backgrounds the wrestlers had while cutting promos on the Event Center. There were some pretty cool, unique designs there (ie, the Mr. Perfect statues, Beefcake's Barbershop).

[TheDuke]

11 minutes ago, JRH said:

Personally, I miss the custom backgrounds the wrestlers had while cutting promos on the Event Center. There were some pretty cool, unique designs there (ie, the Mr. Perfect statues, Beefcake's Barbershop).

I miss those too. I know they wouldn't fit on Raw and Smackdown, but they could help to make Main Event more interesting.