Tony Schiavone and early 90s WCW announcing

[Cox]

The biggest thing was criticizing wrestlers for not hooking the leg when the WWF rule was that you only hook the leg for the real finish. Made the wrestlers look stupid and himself look smart for pointing it out.

I was actually doing this a lot on my UWC commentary until I was politely told to stop. I was ripping off a lot of old Gorilla stuff without realizing that some of it works against the matches.

[jdw]

The biggest thing was criticizing wrestlers for not hooking the leg when the WWF rule was that you only hook the leg for the real finish. Made the wrestlers look stupid and himself look smart for pointing it out.

The hooking the leg was one, and frankly we can find WWF matches where there were pins with no hooked legs. It wasn't a study rule. After all, what was Bundy's pinning gimmick?

 

I also hated Gorilla blowing off stuff with "He's not going to beat him with that..." which helped educate people to shit not mattering in matches.

 

One rarely got a sense of Gorilla being a *fan* of what he watching, instead being above it. And not above it in a detached, objective, "I'm just calling it" fashion. Above it in the sense that I'm better than this sit.

 

People think Vince Scully is detached... but I suspect that a lot of those are people who didn't listen to him a lot locally, and instead got him nationally in a booth with other people. While Vince wasn't exactly pulling the Joey Styles / Gus Johnson orgasm-o-rama play by play, it was very clear Vince loved baseball, love good stuff when he got to call it, and at times just couldn't believe how cool something he just saw happened. He was a pro's pro, so he didn't go overboard with it... and he had a classic signature spot of taking a step back after Really Big to let the crowd emotions/reactions and images play rather than talking over all of it... then he's slip back in at the right moment to put things in perspective.

 

We can joke about Vince going all Noise in pbp as the WWF went national, but he got across that you're watching something cool and exciting because Vince is freaking popping for it on the mic.

 

In a different way, Lance got across that some big shit was going on, but in a different, understand way. A simple "Oh no..." was enough to get across it was Bad Shit, while the slight raising of the voice for a "Lawler coming back..." made you know it was some Good Shit.

 

Beats the living hell out of me what Gorilla thought was Good Shit or Bad Shit, other than him punking Brain was Good Shit while anything Brain said to get over himself or the heels was Bad Shit that needed to be punked.

 

John

[jdw]

jdw, would it be fair to say that you generally dislike old WWWF stalwarts?

Vince pre-expansion was a terrific solo pbp man.

 

The Dick & Kal team at the Spectrum is probably my favorite annoucing team of all-time. It's not that they're great... really. It's that they were so campy, at times so awful, at other times so great, and almost always having so much fun in what they were calling that they're constantly entertaining. I mean... "HE HIT HIM THERE!!!!!" by Kal is probably my favorite call of all time.

 

I'm not a Jesse fan in general, and don't buy the arguments that his color work in the WWF warrants him a spot in the WON HOF. But overall he wasn't bad in his roll, helped get the product over, gave someone in the both for those of us who wanted the Heels to get some positive rub, and he had a certain charisma with Vince that worked. At a certain point he become a cliche of himself, and I never enjoyed the Gorilla-Jesse booth as much as Vince-Jesse.

 

Expansion Vince isn't remotely as good as Pre Expansion Vince, but he is effective in what the WWF was trying to do. He's a bit like Hogan: he might not be exactly what we want in the role, but he helped get the WWF over.

 

In general I liked Brain in the booth in the WWF in the 80s... just didn't like him having to bitch out to Gorilla.

 

I thought Lord Al was total shit, and you kind of never know what you're going to get from him in the both on a given show. Grumpy Al... shit on the heels Al... shit on the faces Al... I can never figure it out, and none of them work for me.

 

Most of the other color men don't do a lot for me. Bock could have been interesting, though he was probably a bit too old school for that the WWF was trying to do. He also got stuck with the incredibly horrible Rod T also brought over from the AWA.

 

I'd have to go back through the WWF thread to see others that I liked. I'm sure there are some others that get some props, but generally speaking the ones who got the most comments have been:

 

Pre-Expansion Vince being great

Gorilla sucking

Kal & Dick being wildly entertaining

 

John

[sek69]

I just find it odd that a lot of people hate Gorilla for putting himself over or shitting on matches, but Jesse did it a lot to the faces in matches he called. There would be times where he would go on a rant that would bring the commentary to a halt complaining about something a face did, or bitching at the face announcer for not getting upset when a face cheated like they do when a heel does. The fact that he was right almost all the time not only made the announcer he was calling out look like a bitch, it made the face look like an asshole for cheating and getting away with it (and to a lesser degree the ref too, I suppose). Don't get me wrong, Jesse is my favorite WWF announcer ever (I marked out when he and Vince called a match on Raw a couple years ago) but he seems to do the same stuff everyone hates Gorilla for doing.

[Loss]

I agree with that. Part of it is problems some of us have with the WWF's wrestling philosophy in general. It manifests itself in many ways -- heels getting visual falls after ref bumps, Hogan being an asshole in his feuds and it being okay -- and the announcing is part of the overall issue.

 

The moral point of view of the Hogan era always seemed to be, "If you're popular, you can do whatever you want and no one will care." It changed a little when Bret rose to the top, but Austin and Rock were later able to treat everyone like shit and not get called on it too. I think it's Vince's worldview creeping into his television presentation.

[jdw]

I just find it odd that a lot of people hate Gorilla for putting himself over or shitting on matches, but Jesse did it a lot to the faces in matches he called. There would be times where he would go on a rant that would bring the commentary to a halt complaining about something a face did, or bitching at the face announcer for not getting upset when a face cheated like they do when a heel does. The fact that he was right almost all the time not only made the announcer he was calling out look like a bitch, it made the face look like an asshole for cheating and getting away with it (and to a lesser degree the ref too, I suppose). Don't get me wrong, Jesse is my favorite WWF announcer ever (I marked out when he and Vince called a match on Raw a couple years ago) but he seems to do the same stuff everyone hates Gorilla for doing.

I think a lot of that is what I was getting at when I said Jesse became a cliche after a certain point.

 

He always was going to do the "I saw nothing" spot when a heel cheated and the "Why aren't you talking about that, McMahon!" spot when a face cheated. He didn't develop new, strong material. The Chicho Santana stuff went on and on and on. It might have been halfway fitting in 1986 since they weren't far off from working some tag matches in 1985. But as the decade went on... it was run into the ground.

 

He also got caught up in his "Tell It Like It Is" crap, which was meant more to put himself over than the product.

 

On the other hand, Jesse was more part of the product than Gorilla. What Monsoon didn't grasp is that he was just another one of the pbp. Obviously #1 when Vince wasn't around/available, but still another pbp guys. Jesse was The Heel Announcer, part of the shows. So Jesse putting himself over was similar to one of the *wrestlers* putting himself over. Monsoon didn't need to... just felt like it because he was a jerkoff.

 

John

[goodhelmet]

As a kid in the 1980s, I always thought Gorilla was the authority on wrestling. He spoke about these bones and muscles I had not learned about in a biology class, he would call it a bad match if he thought it was a bad match, he was a former wrestler who was willing to go toe to toe with Jesse Ventura so it felt like there was real friction, and he was an old man so there was a sense of vulnerability. If you were an adult in the 1980s, I can see why Gorilla would get on your nerves but for a kid, Gorilla was the man.

[Loss]

Here's a question that some might think everyone knows the answer to, but I'm curious to hear people explain it.

 

What did everyone here think of Jim Ross as an announcer pre-WWF? I think he was fantastic, and he's part of the reason I'm so tough on Gorilla Monsoon, but I'm just curious what everyone else thought. It's been touched on in this thread that he tried too hard at times, and I can see that, but I still prefer him to ... well ... any other wrestling announcer ever.

[jdw]

On Will's point above, I was 20 when I started watching wrestling regularly in 1986, so my POV at the time is colored differently than his.

 

On Loss' question, at the time... I thought Ross was great in UWF and better than Tony when joining Crockett/WCW. At some point I tired of him and thought he was trying to hard. At some later point (probably online at tOA in the late 90s), I turned on him like a lot of us did.

 

Rewatching that Crockett/WCW stuff now, and to a degree the UWF stuff, the "tries too hard" part comes up regularly. It's perhaps an unfavorable comp to Lance:

 

Ross came across the first time you listen to him back then as a Sports Announcer calling wrestling

 

That was cool relative to Vince and Gorilla.

 

Except... that's exactly what Ross is trying to do/be. It's his little corner of the con of pro wrestling where we are to believe that he's The Best because he's just as good at what he does as those guys calling the real sports. It comes across really manipulative once you notice it, you can't get it out of your brain, and you just start getting annoyed by him. Ross at his most annoying is every bit as manipulative in what he does as Joey Styles, and not in a good pro wrestling manipulative way.

 

Lance in turn came across as a local bumpkin when you first listened to him back in the day, not as "sharp" and "on top of it" as Ross was. He was like one of those bad homer sports announcers in those cities who don't know that they in fact have a Shitty Announcer rather than a God of The Mic like we out here in LA had with Vince and Chick and Dick Enberg...

 

Except...

 

Some of those local bumpkins aren't bad. Some of them are really good. They might not call games like Vince, and they might be way to close to the local team... but after all, doesn't Vince know more about the Dodgers than anyone else, and could compare Garvey at 1B to Hodges, sort of like Lance if pressed could compare Lawler to Fargo because damnit... he knows these guys? His deliever is different, but it's his way of calling a match... and it does get across what's going on... and the storylines.. and the twists and turns...

 

Damn, this guy is actually pretty good.

 

Solie vs Lance is that one is suppose to be The Best because that what was always said and pimped and jesus christ did he take his ass way to seriously in that role... while the other was The Best because he actually did what needed to be done and got it across to the fans at home like they were sitting there right next to him.

 

Ross is the successor to Solie.

 

It's kind of funny that Ross later became "home spun" as Ol' JR on Raw, but his home spun act came across like another manipulation on his part to be a "regular guy" calling matches rather than the Slick Sports Announcer that he once was. It also was weak relative to Lance.

 

Can Ross call a good match? Sure... but there often is way too much effort being put into it.

 

"Game plan.... Game plan... Game plan..."

 

"Jim: how about you and Tony take that Game Plan you have for calling this match and shove it straight up your asses. Then try to just call the match as it flow."

 

John

[Bix]

Since John brought it up:

 

Is there really any argument for Ross or Solie over Lance anymore, especially now that everyone has gotten over marking put for announcers knowing the names of moves? The best at getting things over, by far the best at interviewing wrestlers (especially carrying green guys), even a great ring announcer, and still at worst very good at calling the action.

 

Similarly, is there any argument that Kent Walton isn't a much better version of the Solie archetype?

 

Not to completely slack on Solie and he absolutely could get over angles well, but his announcing doesnt do much for me anymore.

[El-P]

Jim Ross in later days UWF : annoying, overhyped, overexcited, screaming way too much. Jim Ross in WCW, much better because he was not overselling everything like he did in UWF.

The constant reference to college sports and "real" sport is annoying as hell and reaks of desperation attempt at selling wrestling as just another sport. I don't give a shit about college sport, just shut up about this already.

Overall I find JR quite overrated and don't buy the "greatest wrestling announcer ever" stuff for a minute. He was mainly unbearable from the Attitude era and on to me, overselling everything, kissing HHH's ass and basically fucking up stuff like Schiavone at his worst.

[Loss]

I like Lance Russell, but I don't see the argument for him as better than Jim Ross. When I listen to Ross's call of Vader/Sting at the Great American Bash '92, for example, I consider that possibly the best match call I've ever heard.

 

I agree with many of the criticisms of Jim Ross post-1997, but I'm pretty solidly in support of him prior to that.

[JerryvonKramer]

My view on Ross is that he's close to unbearable on Mid-South/UWF, just too much.

 

Much much better in WCW, although his hard on for the college backgrounds of some people is a bit ridiculous sometimes. He sounds borderline gay for Luger at times. I mean properly homoerotic, like Luger is the living embodiment of all his schoolboy hopes, dreams and fantasies.

 

He's a great play-by-play man though, for sure. I like him well into the Attitude era, probably up to the point -- and I hate to say it -- when he came back from the severe Bell's palsy attack in 1998.

 

His homoerotic tendencies reached epic proportions during this period. STONE COLD! STONE COLD! STONE COLD! THE RATTLESNAKE!!!!! STONE COLD! STUNNER BAHH GGAAAWWDD STUNNER!!! STONE COLD!

 

I didn't like all that.

 

---------------------

 

I'm also going to say I think there's a lot of snobbery and mainstream backlash going on here against Gorilla Monsoon and the WWF boom period announce teams in general.

 

So what if Monsoon called the guys out on the hooked leg to make himself look better, it made sense as a call.

 

Has anyone ever stopped to think for a moment about the nonsense being spouted here? Monsoon got himself over more than the talent? So how come that roster was full of the most over guys arguably in wrestling history? Was that all DESPITE Monsoon?

 

Give me a break.

[Frankensteiner]

I would agree with Ross being the best. I don't really get worked up about the college football references. I like Ross better than Russel because he's better at conveying excitement in the action. Now sometimes he goes overboard and becomes a self-parody, but at his best I think Ross is the better than anyone. My favorite Ross commentary is at KOTR during Bret/Perfect. That Ross-Heenan-Savage team was awesome.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I always found Ross' "real sports" references lent a sense of, "Hey, Joe six pack and guy who makes fun of wrestlers..these guys are real athletes" to things.

[KrisZ]

Growing up in the mid 80's in Atlanta you were lucky to be a wrestling fan as you could experience all the announcers from around the country and I likened it to the hometown baseball announcers because all of them had their own special feel.

 

My hometown guy was Solie even after he was forced out by Crockett, Solie was still the voice of Atlanta because he was on Joe Pedicino's Superstars of Wrestling show and Pro Wrestling This Week every week then we got him on Continental.

 

I never embraced the Schiavone/David Crockett tandem although they were fun for what they were but going from Solie to Crockett was quite the difference.

 

I always loved Lance and it was a blessing to get Memphis TV every week because of it's chaotic nature and how he handled the show.

 

Mid-South had the dichotomy of Boyd Pierce/Bill Watts to Jim Ross/Joel Watts and I always loved Ross because he made the show exciting to watch while Boyd was like your grandfather doing the announcing which was fine but he was lost without Bill Watts who actually did most of the PBP to be honest.

 

Ross becoming the main guy for UWF with Michael Hayes as his color guy was one of my favorite announce teams ever because they had the chemistry that few announce teams had. Ross then going to Crockett was odd because they put him on the C shows until he worked his way up. His work from 1989-93 was pretty damn great as he worked with almost everyone and you could tell who he enjoyed working with and who he didn't. I loved his interplay with people like Heyman, Missy, Corny, & Hayes who he had personal connections to while his work with Solie or Caudle was totally different as he was more of a professional because of those two's professionalism.

 

We got Mid-Atlantic which became NWA Pro with Caudle & Johnny Weaver and they came across as these old-time guys who took their calls seriously while exhibiting no foolishness.

 

Bill Mercer was a complete debacle who I thought was a joke as a kid and still do to this day. I always preferred Mark Lowrance who has gotten a bad rap over the years but doesn't deserve it as he was a competent announcer.

 

AWA was the land of shitty announcers so I didn't take them seriously.

 

WWF had some different things going on because Vince & Gorilla were the main two PBP guys with Vince getting SNME/Superstars and Gorilla getting everything else pretty much and with them at that time it really depended on who the color guys were on what you were going to get. Vince mainly worked with Ventura and they had great chemistry together while getting over the product more than any announce team in the company.

 

Meanwhile you had Gorilla who with Heenan was awesome just for the comedy element and I never really listened for the match call just for the comedy stuff with them. Gorilla with Lord Alfred or anyone else was bad because they couldn't play off of Gorilla and you got the worst of Gorilla getting himself over.

 

I'm always going to be partial to Solie just because but when it comes to all-around announcers there isn't anyone better than Lance so if I ranked a Top 3 it would be Lance then Solie then Ross.

[Al]

Ross was fantastic with timing finishes. I don't think any announcer ever did a better job of really selling the importance of a big move or a big event, just from the inflection of his voice. Let me put it this way. If you couldn't speak English and listened to all the announcers, Ross would probably rank a solid first.

[smkelly]

Ross is better than Giant Baba, that's fer damn sure. Baba sounds like an alien. Naylor does the best Baba, though it is exaggerated a tad.

 

Anyway, the standout Ross performance to me was the Last Man Standing match between Cena and Umaga. Ross was epic during that match. I think the distinction we should make is when we know Ross is being himself or when Vince and company are talking in his ear telling him to say certain things at a certain time. I could easily hear Vince tell Ross, "Oversell the hell out of the stunner."

[El-P]

Ross was fantastic with timing finishes. I don't think any announcer ever did a better job of really selling the importance of a big move or a big event, just from the inflection of his voice. Let me put it this way. If you couldn't speak English and listened to all the announcers, Ross would probably rank a solid first.

Akira Fukuzawa says hello. I don't speak japanese, and as it is I would rank him pretty much at the top along with Lance.

 

Ross over excitement during finishes post 1999 just makes him unbearable to me during big matches, he sounds like he's having a panic attack and it's just as ridiculous as Joey Styles infamous screamed lines (and I like Joey as much as anybody).

 

Basically Ross ranks that way to me :

 

WCW Ross > WWF (1993-1998) Ross (at his best, really great, and excellent most of the time) >> UWF >>> WWF post 1999 (could be just plain terrible and annoying, oversells everything by gawd!)

[smkelly]

To be fair to both Styles and Ross though, some of the stuff they oversold deserved to be oversold. The barbed wire match with Sabu and Funk, or Mankind versus Taker in the cell comes to mind. If I were in attendance during either match, I would have been yelling too. Nevertheless, with some stuff, they did take it too far, like the aforementioned overselling of top tiered workers finishing maneuvers. However, it is still better than the high school kid sounding Indy commentators that are monotone 90% of the time.

[ohtani's jacket]

What is all this crap? Tony was a million times better than Ross in WCW and Tony and Jesse were the best WCW commentating pair of the 90s. Jesse was better in WCW than he was in WWF, and Gorilla with Jesse or Heenan was much better than the montones of Vince in WWWF. The winner in all this is Lance Russell who I will stauchy argue was better than Kent Walton in the battle of the all-time greatest announcers.

[El-P]

What is all this crap? Tony was a million times better than Ross in WCW

A million times is a bit overstated, but I agree Tony at his best was better than Ross at his best to me, and Tony was really damn good up until 1997.

 

and Tony and Jesse were the best WCW commentating pair of the 90s.

Totally agree.

[Herodes]

Jesse was great and Tony and Jesse in WCW were a real good team. Lance Russell was the best, no question. Also great were Dr Alfonso Morales, Arturo Rivera (mainly when paired with the Doc) and Magadan - on older lucha Pedro 'El Mago' Septien was just fantastic. Regardless what anyone says, I think Gorilla was great even if a large part of that is nostalgia and the time he is associated with - I'm not going to apply any high critical standards to pro wrestling and if it is nostalgia talking then so be it; I'd happily listen to Gorilla/Brain and Gorilla/Jesse for hours. Never cared much for McMahon especially solo McMahon in the 70s and early 80s who displayed no personality or ability to engage the audience. Solie was too much of a square, Joey Styles sucked and Bob Caudle was OK but when I hear him I'm reminded that he worked for and was a life-long supporter of Jesse Helms so fuck him. Ross in WCW was at his best.

 

An unpopular opinion - Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred Hayes are incredibly underrated; given that they spent most of their time calling endless hours of completely inconsequential matches they always found a way to amuse themselves and their light-hearted banter and nonsense had a real chemistry about it. The matches they called for the most part meant nothing in the grand scheme of things so they could just call shit however they pleased and for the most part it was very entertaining.

[Mad Dog]

I find that David Crockett takes a little too much flak from people. He's not the best but there's something genuine to his commentary that a lot of other announcers miss.

 

I really enjoy the Ross/Cornette team when it gets together.

 

The older I get, the less I like Bobby Heenan as an announcer. He really only worked with Gorilla Monsoon if you ask me. He can really get out of control if the other announcer doesn't play ball with his jokes during matches. And even with Gorilla during Wrestling Challenge, they could really go off the rails and forget to call the action here and there. The only time he was good without Gorilla was during the nWo. He really came alive with the idea that Hogan validated what he had been saying about him since the Andre feud. It was always an interesting subtext to the nWo days.

 

JBL was probably the best color commentator the WWF has had since Ventura left.

 

I didn't see him mentioned but I loved Stevie Ray's brief stint on Thunder in 2000. He was terrible but some of the shit he would say was hilarious. My friend and I still use some of the Stevieisms like "fruitbooty" and suckas gots to know".

[PeteF3]

Ross was fantastic with timing finishes. I don't think any announcer ever did a better job of really selling the importance of a big move or a big event, just from the inflection of his voice. Let me put it this way. If you couldn't speak English and listened to all the announcers, Ross would probably rank a solid first.

Akira Fukuzawa says hello. I don't speak japanese, and as it is I would rank him pretty much at the top along with Lance.

 

I don't really agree or disagree here, I just find it interesting that Hisa--native Japanese speaker that he is and one of the few guys in the IWC who can understand the announcers at all--absolutely hates Fukuzawa and more or less has dismissed him as a goofball (which he was).

 

I tend to think Ross' peak was late '80s NWA. It may be sample size/selection bias but his screaming act sounded dialed-back in comparison to the UWF days, which were just as abrasive and out-of-control as he would become in the late '90s/early '00s, but without the unintentional hilarity of his angrier, indignant "DAMN HIS SOUL!" moments to make up for it.

 

I'm also going to agree that Crockett, as hideously unpolished as he was, did a better job of getting the angles and wrestlers and even match psychology over in a given match than Schiavone was. Even Schiavone's "Straight to hell..." peak is at best even with Crockett's somber, quiet "The Russian Nightmare...has come true."