Posted in: The Northern Star The Northern Star--Halling Stone
By XanMan
Jan 21, 2009 - 8:15:51 AM
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt."--Abraham Lincoln
In the hearts and minds of a lot of people, Ric Flair is the greatest wrestler in the history of the business. I know a lot say Shawn Michaels also, some say Bret Hart, probably still others are going to truck with Triple H or Hulk Hogan. And then, there's Stone Cold Steve Austin. I was pleased as punch when Steve Austin was announced as the first 2009 inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame. It had been speculated about for a while and a rumor surfaced on Sunday due to somebody over at WWE.com making an idiotic mistake roughly on the order of the computer coding error that made all 30GB Zunes inoperable on December 31, 2008 because it was the 366th day of the year. And just like I hope the person at Microsoft that made my Zune inoperable for over 24 hours lost their job--hey, it's a big screwup--I hope the WWE let their tech idiot go, as well--hey, they're cutting people, anyway--unless it's Joey Styles. If Styles was the one who screwed up, they should reassign him to take Michael Cole's spot. After all, Michael Cole's the idiot who on the same broadcast stated of a man who has never won the event, "Kane has been very successful in Royal Rumbles over the years."
I think it's safe to say that Michael Cole is the worst commentator in the history of the WWE. Many of you will argue saying, "Ah ha--there was once Todd Pettengill." And, of course there was, but Pettengill wsn't really a commentator. He was a radio personality who was hired to host a highlight show that featured emails and call-ins; if memory serves it was called "Live Wire." I'm probably wrong about that, but I'm not wrong about this: Michael Cole is fucking terrible. If you don't think he is, consider this. During a PPV broadcast--I want to say it was Unforgiven, but it could have been the Royal Rumble(duh, no it couldn't have been; it hasn't happened yet, I mean, of course, Survivor Series) Jerry Lawler said, "Michael, do you ever just sit back and watch the match?" Why did he say that, because he's an asshole? Well, he very well could be, but the reason that he said it is simple. Michael Cole is a fucking idiot who drones on and on during every match. He may be the ultimate shill, but he's crap as an announcer. In fact, he's so bad that he makes Jerry Lawler look good by comparison; that's his only saving grace, really.
Lawler was once an excellent commentator, but he really isn't anymore. He's always scoffing or smirking, his good lines have all been said, and while he doesn't ramble on about puppies anymore, he's certainly far more excited about the thought of an attractive woman heading down to the ring than he should be. Maybe he's playing a character and he's not like that in his every day life; maybe what we see and hear on WWE broacasts is Jerry Lawler being "The King" in the manner in which his boss desires, but maybe not. Either way, he's certainly nowhere near the color guy he was 10 years ago. At best, he's the 5th best color commentator employed by the WWE. Yes, I said 5th; that's not a typo. JBL is currently in the middle of an engaging angle involving Shawn Michaels, but that won't last forever and neither will his in-ring career. Once he got the hang of commentating, though, he was lights out; he's the best the WWE has. Maybe the best they've ever had. Heyman was really good, too; it's hard to make a judgment call between them, especially since Heyman had to sell why the ECW/WCW team was better than the WWE one; not an easy sell to make.
Other guys on the WWE roster that outstrip Lawler in color commentator skills include--in order--Matt Stryker, Tazz, and John Cena. Cena might even be higher on the list, but we've only heard him on there once and despite his protests to Stephanie McMahon a couple of weeks ago, he's a natural. When the time comes that John Cena has to hang up his boots--and with his recent injury history, who knows how soon that could be?--I think he'd be an awesome guy to have in the booth just thinking of his analytical skills, and if you mix those with his enthusiasm? Fucking boomstick is what you got there! There is, of course, one more active wrestler that was once a tremendous announcer, and his name is Shawn Michaels. That was a lifetime ago, however. Not literally, of course, but as far as Michaels is concerned, it might as well be. There's no way of knowing how good he could be on the mic without being the arrogant heel character he was then, so why bother with painful reminiscence? The bottom line is that any of these guys would be a better commentator for "The A Show" than Lawler is and if he's going to remain there, he really needs Vince McMahon to keep him grounded.
"I want to work with great people. Great people really make you better."--Dennis Quaid
When I say that, though, I don't mean Vince McMahon, the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, I'm talking about the guy that used to be the play by play commentator alongside Jesse Ventura, Roddy Piper, Shawn Michaels, Jerry Lawler, and probably more color commentators that I can't remember at this moment. As far as I'm concerned, he's the best play by play man the sport of kings has ever seen. You can have your Gordon Solie and Gorilla Monsoon; I know they're both beloved and respected and can more or less understand the reasons why, but I'll take Vince every time. While Gordon was great at the technical aspects of the job and Monsoon was more than capable of playing the role of straight man to the over-the-top Jesse Ventura and hilarious Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, that's about where his talents stopped, and his usage of medical terminology to describe where somebody got hit or hurt was a bit much and always annoyed me. Vince, meanwhile, was the everyman fan--always excited by the action going on inside the ring and unafraid to stand up to his color guy if necessary, but usually choosing to just let it ride.
Vince sold the action, the events, and the wrestlers through his enthusiasm for everything taking place; not by saying that getting slapped by The Big Show is like being hit by a frying pan or a skillet. Vince would actually know that they are the same thing. Nor would it be by using the word "vintage" 15 times in the match or by using grammar that would make an elementary school teacher scream.(Hmmm, I guess it would be a bad idea to pair Michael Cole with Matt Stryker, your teacher.) I don't just dislike Michael Cole because he's annoying; you can be annoying and still be a good wrestling commentator. I dislike Michael Cole because the things he says make little sense. Saying something that Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair does is "vintage" makes sense, because they've been professional wrestling stars for many years and are, in fact, old. Shawn Michaels has been back wrestling for 6 years; Rey Mysterio has been in the WWE for about the same amount of time. Nothing they do is vintage. It's as stupid as saying, "The referee never saw it." about something that happened approximately 10 seconds ago. Oh wait, he does that, too.
What he doesn't do, however, despite his shrill shreiking; mournful expressions and exclamations whenever a heel does something to win; and his apparent desire to create cliches that contain no modicum of sense, is make the fans really give a damn about the matches he calls. Putting him on the "A" show was a careless mistake by management. If they did it solely to thumb their nose at Jim Ross, it was an idiotic thumbing and if they really thought moving Ross to Fridays was going to help Friday Night Smackdown just as much as drafting Triple H and Jeff Hardy over there, this was also something on which they were--surprise, surprise--sadly mistaken. However, what this move did was emphasize how good Jim Ross is. He's not as good a commentator as Vince McMahon, and likely never will be-- I'm sure there are those out there that will disagree with me--but, what he is is very, very smooth. He makes his share of mistakes, of course: confusing the Hardyz from time to time, miscalling moves, and (the mistake I've been waiting for for over 18 months now) calling Chris Jericho "Chris Benoit" come to mind, but they don't grate the way Cole's do, because he's a professional.
Yeah, he didn't act like it last year when he was being moved over from RAW to Smackdown and basically whined about it in his blog, and yes, he apologized for that last week in his blog when he saw so many of his former fellow employees had been released and started feeling grateful just to have a job. The fact is, though, he was right. An announcer moving brands doesn't really shake things up, it isn't the kind of blockbuster that a superstar moving is, and it's quite dentrimental when you're moving your best announcer to the non-premier brand. The fact that they managed to create a strong announce team on said brand is beside the point; it was Lawler that should have moved instead of JR. Ross is currently the best play by play man in the business, and thus, he should be on the brand that has the live show. Let Michael Cole and his idiocy be on the show that has tapings so that they can correct his godawful mistakes and pair him up with Lawler over there. Meanwhile, they can move Tazz back to ECW and put Stryker on RAW; the ECW team won best announce team for a reason, and Stryker can only get better sitting beside the legendary Ross.
"I mean, there are only so many notes. What makes something original is how you put it together."--Lenny Kravitz
Like all legends, of course, Ross didn't start out that way. I remember back when he used to call matches for WCW, and he was pretty good then, but his accent made him sound like a hick, so it was very hard to take him seriously. It wasn't until he moved to the WWE and started to lose a bit of that accent as he matured that he became the announcer that he is today. Ross himself recently acknowledged that it was the signing of Stone Cold Steve Austin that gave him some credibility as a vice-president of the World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment, but I think it goes deeper than that. Jim Ross wasn't with World Championship Wrestling when they really started becoming a national power. Sure, for years the National Wrestling Alliance was broadcast on TBS, and of course that national cable broadcast meant that they were a strong wrestling brand, but Lex Luger, Sting, and The Four Horsemen still weren't the big names that Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and The Ultimate Warrior were; even Bret Hart and Diesel had more name value than the mainstays of WCW, and by the time that the NWO was formed, Jim Ross was firmly entrenched in his job with the WWF.
While Ross began broadcasting for the organization in 1993 and certainly has a handful of recognizable catchphrases, such as "business is picking up" and "running like a scalded dog," I believe he really started his status as a legend when he began calling matches featuring such names as Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. To me, when you see highlights of Stone Cold Steve Austin and you hear that background voice screaming, "Stone Cold! Stone Cold! Stone Cold!" you can't help but realize that it's Jim Ross screaming it and when I think of Stone Cold Steve Austin giving the stunner or anything else, I always hear that voice in the background. The two are inextricably linked; or rather, while it's easy to see Jim Ross and not think of Steve Austin, I don't think the reverse is true. It's like when you hear a great home run call as a baseball fan or when you hear a great quote; you can't get that out of your mind. You always recognize the words as being associated with the person who said them. In this case though, the words and voice are recognized as being about Steve Austin, but as being said by Jim Ross; and thus the two go together...the fact that they are friends outside of the business only enhances that feeling.
When the announcement was made on RAW that Austin was going to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year--and the decision to use "Cult of Personality" as the theme for the video package accompany the announcement was brilliant--my first thought was about who would be inducting him and coming to the logical conclusion that it would be his friend, Good Old JR, Jim Ross. After the announcement, (actually, shortly after Michael Cole said that incredibly inaccurate line about Kane) I jumped on AIM and chatted with some fellow columnists and--after my usual bitching about what a moron Coleslaw is--I asked them who had "JR" in the "Who's going to induct Austin pool." Guess what. They all did...well, all except one who thought it might be Vince McMahon, but had apparently come around to it being Austin, also. McMahon makes sense, when you think about the fact that it was McMahon's feud with Austin that helped catapult the WWF back ahead of WCW in the Monday Night War and eventually won that war for the WWF while WCW folded--or was bought out, if you prefer. The other person that makes sense to me, though it might not to some, is Bret Hart.
I realize that Hart bailed on Wrestlemania XXIII after being inducted into the Hall of Fame the night before, and I know that he still has hard feelings about what happened in Montreal at the 1997 Survivor Series, but there is still the rumor out there that he and the WWE will be making a second video about his career and with the possibility of a next generation Hart Foundation being called up to the big time, I think there's always a chance we'll see him working in front of the camera for the WWE again. That being the case, and he being the one that gave Austin his first big feud; the one that got Austin over huge with the fans, Hart makes sense to me. He doesn't make as much sense as Jim Ross or Vince McMahon does, of course; the other two seem far more logical, and I'd rank them in that order. Do you know who makes absolutely no sense to me, though? The guy that is rumored to be Austin's selection: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. What, was Austin dropped on his head a few too many times? What in the world does Ric Flair have to do with the legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin, other than Austin once looked like a young Ric Flair in his early career in WCW?
"I want to be all used up when I die."--George Bernard Shaw
So, why Flair? I honestly don't get it, and I'd really like to hear Steve Austin go on LAW or on record with an internet reporter and explain his feelings on the subject. While I believe that a wrestler should be allowed to have some say in who inducts him into the Hall of Fame, I think it's only logical to want the reason for that inductor to be chosen to make some sense; this appears to make none. The only thing these two appear to have in common to me is that they each were one of the greatest wrestlers of their generations and that they were both pushed down the card in WCW by Hulk Hogan. Is this the answer then? Because, as far as I'm concerned, if there's somebody who makes as much sense as either Jim Ross or Vince McMahon, and more than The Hitman to open the door of Steve Austin into the Hall of Fame with a litany of words that will wow the masses, it's the man who has drawn the ire of Vince McMahon by hosting a show on CMT(which peripherally stands for Country Music Television) that apparently does a lot to remove the little bit of kayfabe that McMahon, himself left in the business. Seems a bit hypocritical, does it not?
Nevertheless, the truth is that Stone Cold Steve Austin ended up following the path created by Hulk Hogan, not one created by The Nature Boy and it seems strange that if Austin doesn't want his good buddy Jim Ross or Mr. McMahon to induct him that he would turn in the direction of Ric Flair when the more obvious path lies with Hogan. After all, Hulk Hogan was the guy who--with McMahon's financial and moral backing--revolutionized the professional wrestling industry and brought it to the masses. If Flair had been in Hogan's shoes, wrestling may still very well be a backwater sport that has most of its fans in the stereotypical redneck tribe instead of becoming something that's it's fairly acceptable to watch nationally. And, it was Hulk Hogan who was the visible front of the organization that Austin's ascendancy in the WWF eventually put out of business. Whether he would have in inflationary dollars or not, it's Hogan's records that Austin eventually broke with his sales of merchandise, ratings, and incredible level of popularity. Am I saying that Austin should have asked Hogan to induct him into the WWE Hall of Fame? Not necessarily.
While, I believe Hogan makes clearly and by far more sense as an inductor to Stone Cold than Flair does, the fact is right now both men are outsiders to the WWE, and it's understandable that the WWE doesn't want to give either Flair(who asked for release from his contract) or Hogan(for reasons previously mentioned) any more exposure or publicity than they already have. Someone really should stand up to Austin and tell him he can have either Ross or McMahon, whichever he chooses; they're the most logical, anyway. In the grand scheme of things this is a minor controversy, though it's clearly important enough to me to write a column about it. The unfortunate point that's lost in the news of whom Austin wants to induct him is the fact that his induction likely means he's never going to wrestle again. As much as I'd love to see Austin pinning Hogan or jobbing to one Randall Keith Orton while I'm in the crowd at Wrestlemania, it's now apparent to me that's not going to happen, and the biggest outlaw in the WWE is now raising the hell the only way he can--on the sidelines. Hopefully the HOF ceremony and the traditional introduction at Wrestlemania will close the chapter on Austin's WWE appearances. It's sad to see this once proud outlaw relegated to playing the referee once year in October, but I guess it'll continue until the WWE realizes that all they're doing is milking blood from a stone.
