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You snap your fingers, you snap your neck.

Raise your hand if this is the first time you've heard of Step Stool Sarah. (Seriously, that ring name sounds like a weird BDSM fetish gimmick.)

I think calling someone a "good" or "bad" person based on some rumors you heard is enough reason to discount your entire post. You clearly aren't objectively rating commentators if you're talking about Graves fucking around on his ex-wife or whatever your problem is. And again: until everyone is ready to rake Edge, Benoit, and Noble over the coals for their bullying, no one really needs to spend any more time wagging their finger at JBL. The hate is absurdly overblown, and still has more to do with Eddy than anything else. WWE commentary is garbage, but it has nothing to do with the personal lives of the commentators.

This is the sugar hold. Bob Roop, Ron Fuller, Jack Brisco, and other shooters would use the hold on marks who wanted a tryout at the snake pit in Tampa during the 70s.

I'm holding you directly responsible

I decided to supplement my older son's current education by having him work on keyboarding and coding. He's 12 so keyboarding is a must now. And he wants to make video games one day so I got him a book on coding with Python. He started working on the Python book at the beginning of the quarantine. Today he just made Pong. I just played it. Crazy. Everything is awesome.

About current WWE announcing; last night I nearly threw my remote at my TV when they said "Lethal Lothario" 3 times in about 45 seconds. I have no idea if any of these people are any good (well, Graves was good in NXT and Lawler used to be hit or miss in the 90's) but it's impossible to give a good performance with the way WWE produces them.

If it's any consolation Benoit is being raked over the coals right as we speak (literally).

My favorite announce team is Lance Russell and Dave Brown. As far as worst, nobody comes close to Bill Mercer.

"Lethal Lothario" should've been a Jay Lethal/Jose Lothario pairing. There's no other excuse for that phrase.

OK fine. Corey Graves, whatever you feel about him personally, is a terrible commentator because he constantly strives to put himself over, at the expense of the match he is calling.

Someone should do a Braden-Walker-style best of DVD cover art for Cain Velasquez.

Why would anyone send him that? Does he even watch Stardom or know what it is? I see people post a comment like this here on occasion and can't help but wonder if they are trying to pull some reverse psychology shit and get people here to send this stuff to Cornette. The move is called the Mana Bauer, and it was more Utami who he was teaching it to. She is the group's power wrestler, and I think has done it once or twice before. She uses the torture rack quite often and occasionally turns it into a powerbomb. Surprisingly that is the only gif I can find of it.

It will always be Monsoon/Heenan but Monsoon/Ventura was up there as well. I'll always remember watching the first Survivor Series and Hulk cleaning house at the end and Ventura going on this rant about Cleveland and how they were all losers cheering a loser and my dad and grandpa are completely laughing their asses off. With Heenan in WCW people seem to forget that he really went downhill when he know the company was going down the toilet. One thing I wish they had done was after Hogan turned have Heenan cut a promo on how he always saw through Hogan and that he always knew the guy was a fraud.

Gorilla was always good, but it's likely the reason people thought he was terrible was that he was SUCH a good straightman at what he did. Once you're old enough to watch real sports and not just be enamored of the game, you realize that Gorilla Monsoon had a gimmick the whole time- he was the announcer for your home team's locally-televised games. That's basically the whole schtick Gorilla Monsoon had. Just like the home team's announcer- the home team has never committed a foul, even when they're intentionally fouling to get the ball back. The lowest man on your team's bench could drop a safe on the head of the opposing team's star and the home announcer would say it was overstated by the referee and proof the guy was on the take from the other team. Same schtick from Monsoon- whether it was Hulk Hogan or a random jobber in white boots, the guy could punch a child on the way to the ring and Gorilla would say "Eh, the kid had it coming to him." That made Gorilla far better than he gets credit for...because when you combine Gorilla being the homer announcer and being so good at selling his color men with Hulk Hogan's in-ring style being best described as "he's a classic heel wrestler who does his heel schtick to bad guys", that meant that Bobby Heenan and Jesse Ventura could tee off on Gorilla's claims and make Gorilla seem stupid for how much of a homer he was and how much he was letting the faces get away with. It worked with Heenan (because he was never supposed to be taken seriously and you knew Heenan was a homer for the bad guys), but with Ventura it never clicked as well because it was tempered with enough realism that even the most starry-eyed kid who thought it was all real would sometimes realize "wait a second...Ventura has a point there...". As far as whether Pettingill was just the real Vince's humor...I don't buy it. Todd Pettingill wasn't stupid Vince humor, he was a morning zoo guy brought into pro wrestling, and invariably his sense of humor would have fallen to...well, a morning zoo DJ. That doesn't seem like Vince's style- if Vince was doing DJ work, I'd assume he'd be the town's guy who is trying to be a shock jock, but failing miserably at the role and ends up "It's not good. It's not funny. It's not even that shocking. It's just...stupid."

The Shadow is the best gimmick poster in a long time.

One of the grocery stores near me (Giant) has arrows on the floor (maybe 1.5' x 1') to denote that aisles are one-way only, to at least keep people from crossing each other. Every time I go there, some dumb fucks are going the wrong way. Store staff has taken to making BIGGER arrows, the actual width of the aisle x 3 or 4 feet, with painter's tape. We're a nation of bleach drinkers and arrow non-followers.

I actually liked the contract signing because MacIntyre got to play the rare face-who-doesn't-stand-around-waiting-to-get-attacked role and actually instigated the violence and still stood tall after the 2 on 1. Mahal looks better with the shorter hair, more of a killer. MVP being ALL over WWE programming lately is weird. He hosted the VIP Lounge (also a big LOL at the VIP lounge having futons!), showed up again to antagonize Cedric-Richocet with the new team he's (Possibly?) managing. Heck, he was doing colour commentary on last week's Main Event that immediately preceded it on Sportsnet last night! Zelina is the best. During that 6 man, a couple of the wrestlers were decidedly just standing around waiting to be tagged: no emotion, no character show. At the same time, Vega is walking around the ring: she's talking trash, she's getting on the ref, she's reacting favourably to moves her charges hit, she's upset when they get hit with moves in return. Sometimes Aleister Black is just a guy standing on the apron, waiting for his turn to get in the ring, at which point he turns on the Aleister Black switch and plays the character perfectly, then he tags out and goes back to a guy waiting for his turn to perform. From the point she walks through the curtain, there is no moment when Zelina Vega is not Zelina Vega.

Moving on to the other video, it starts with Jose Tarres vs Karl Von Chenok, a huge guy with an iron forehead vs a devious master of the nervehold. The huge guy has a headlock suplex: And spends the whole match basically trying to do this: Chenok's nervehold is pretty dangerous but Tarres has such a reach advantage and isn't afraid to use it on the poor guy's ears.

The other day we were watching Fast Five because my daughter wanted to watch a fun action movie (she liked it a lot) and at the beginning of the movie they're showing all of these news clips about Dom. And near the end of those clips...there's Perd Hapley and I got all excited to see Perd and for the Parks and Rec reunion. I also love that the guy who plays Perd is always playing a news guy. Are you there Perd-verts? It's me, Perd!

The Buffalo Bills had a handsome and popular running back who rushed for 2000 yards in one season and started in national TV commercials. Maybe he could have been a celebrity guest wrestler in the '70s!

Triple H must be from there, amirite?

That same "Dangerous" announcer also was the best booker in wrestling from 2003-2008.

This thread has reminded me how shitty Ted DiBiase’s Mania booking was post-WM4. He wrestled on 5 through 9, and EVERY one of those matches ended in some form of countout or DQ. Like clockwork, every year: Death, taxes, and a bullshit Million Dollar Man finish at Mania.

You know who's good at commentary? Both Jeff @Gorman and @DylanWaco Hales are really good. Can we all agree that announcers who don't get on IRL are usually bad, whereas announcers who are legit friends but have a 'wind each other up' commentary gimmick are good? But when you take it further and they're actually having a commentary feud, that's just the worst?

Styles depends largely on what era Styles you're listening to. He was pretty bad in late-era ECW, shoehorning "OH MY GOD" in wherever he could. But man, I watched some Eastern Championship Wrestling TV the other day and he was absolutely unlistenable. That shouting voice he does when something happens in mid-to-late era ECW ("It's NEW JACK! NEW JACK IS HERE!")? He uses it constantly. Someone told him to turn it up to 11 and stay there: "PAT TANAKA WITH AN ARMDRAG! HE PUTS FUNK IN A HEADLOCK! FUNK GETS UP TO A VERTICAL BASE!" Anyways: BEST TEAM: I don't know if I ever enjoyed an announce team as much as Schivone/Dusty. I liked Venture, too. For WWE, it's probably sacrilege but I think the first iteration of Cole and JBL was probably their best, most consistent team. Cole would just call the action, JBL would defence the heels, crack some jokes and poke fun at Cole but it never felt like they hated each other. Every time they added a third man, it would go down as JBL would just steamroll whoever was with them (Byron). I actually think Phillips, Saxton and Joe could be a really good trio if given the chance. WORST TEAM: Josh Matthews and Jeremy Borash. They were doing this feuding announcers thing like WWE (Which was bad) but this was unlistenable. Borash would say something, then Matthews would talk over him playing a pseudo-heel character but still trying to cal PBP over Borash who was also trying to call PBP. Mercifully, it didn't last very long. Honourable mention to the Cole, Graves, and Coachman team which was just Cole and Graves literally waiting for Coachman to misspeak so they could pouond on him and make fun of him. MOST OVERRATED: JR and Heyman. Heyman was trying to do a very old-schoolish heel announcer role, few jokes. Ross was clearly ticked off about his partner being dumped and overplayed the face role, disagreeing with everything Heyman said. They had little to no chemistry (Which was weird because the one syndicated WCW show I used to get in the early 90s was Ross, Dangerously and Missy Hyatt and they worked well together then) and just did NOT work well together. UNDERRATED: Matt Striker and Vampiro. Man, do I dislike most (Almost all) of Striker's announcing ("I'm marking out!") but he and Vampiro worked perfectly together in the first 2-3 seasons of Lucha Underground (I didn't stick around much past the second season). Striker sold the onscreeen lunacy like death while Vampiro reacted to big moves, talked about lucha and got involved in a reasonably believable way. HONOURBLE MENTIONS: =I actually thought Joel Gertner was particularly well-suited to late-era ECW, letting Styles call the action and make dirty jokes or cheer for the heels in between. I could never understand why they would have him on the weekly show but find a reason to take him off the PPV broadcasts and replace him with Cyrus. I mean I get that the weekly shows were taped and they could script and edit him but the show was such rampaging nonsense for the last so many months but they still did it to get Cyrus on, when Gertner worked better with Styles anyways. -I actually really liked Renee Young on the announce team, added a different-sounding voice to the equation. I think if she had started with Phillips instead of Cole and Graves, she would have found her footing a little better. -That kind of snorting/grunting noise Booker T does when someone hits a big move in a match, to me, gets a guy way more over than anything Corey Graves has ever, or will ever do on commentary. Like, when Booker T does it, it feels earned like "Wow, that was something!" whereas everything Graves says sounds like it comes from the Bobby Heenan playbook which he has read but not understood. -Vince McMahon is underrated as a PBP guy. He could never go back to it now, because he's played and pushed the Mr. McMahon character so far over the years. But before Montreal, McMahon was absolutely perfect for WWF-style wrestling. He didn't need to call moves by the right names, because it didn't really matter. He would laugh like a lunatic for things the faces said or did (Go watch the the scene where Doink trips Bam Bam with the tripwire and McMahon sounds like he's going to have a heartattack from laughing so hard at it) and he was and is, hands-down, the best at sounding angry when a wrestler crosses the line (Listen to him in early Austin 3:16 when he attacks Pat Patterson: "That's hall-of-famer Pat Patterson!" -I actually think Colt Cabana is not a bad colour commentator. *ducks* No, seriously, you know where he would have been a much better fit than AEW, is back in WWE, announcing alongside Tom Phillips. He has a pretty decent wrestling knowledge, can play the tweener role a bit, and loves a good poop joke. I think he's much better commentator than a wrestler. *ducks again* DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS -Mark Madden is hands-down the worst of anything ever. When he would say "Snootchie bootchies, Tony! Snootchie bootchies." you could practically hear him elbowing Schiavone in the ribs like "GEt it? Get iT?" There was no match so bad, that he couldn't bring it down further with his commentary. -Jerry Lawler was probably never good. I used to think he was good before he just perved out every episode, but I went back and watched some of his earlier WWF stuff and he was just as bad then (I know I mentioned it in the Raw thread a few weeks back, but one one of the shows they had WWF announcer Bonnie Blackstone and Lawler talked about "her ugly mug" and made dog whistles at her while calling "Here Bonnie!"). -CM Punk wasn't a very good wrestling announcer. Everything about him and his promos made him seem like he'd be good but it just wasn't. Him bullying Scott Stanford wasn't entertaining either, just kind of uncomfortable and only tolerated/loved by wrestling fans because of who it was. You do that exact same pairing with JBL and Stanford with all the same lines, and we'd be hearing over and over about what a bully JBL was for it. -*preemptively ducks* I don't really care for the Schiavone/Jericho pairing. Jericho swings wildly from cartoony heel announcer to trying to explain holds and Schiavone spends too much time laughing at and with Jericho.

Boy is that an understatement. I like the guy in that Cain clip that looks like either a Goomba from Mario the movie or Pinhead from Puppet Master. Also, I had a dream about working for Bill Watts as a school janitor last night. He kept making me do more and more stuff so I cussed him out and quit. I guess I managed to escape before he beat my ass.

Books the closest thing to Dusty on Commentary we are ever gonna get again

I just want to apologize to everyone I let down. My friends, my family, and especially the fans.

I bet that motherfucker Not Me hasn't worn a mask this entire time.

I agree with Schiavone and Ventura being underrated. They were really good together. Tony’s WWF run wasn’t bad short lived but not bad. I’ve been watching Saturday Night on The Network lately well WCW 92 as a whole and I gotta say Ventura and Ross were a good team too. JR and Heyman in 01 is very overlooked too. I think the best pairing based on The 92 Rumble Match alone is Gorilla and Brain. My personal fav’s from growing up watching SmackDown world be Michael Cole and Tazz. I would put Cole and JBL up there too. My guilty pleasure is Mike Tenay and Don West. The Worse is what ever is on Raw. WWE commentary has been awful for a decade at least. That 3 man team from Raw in the Fall of 05 within Joey King and Coach was really bad. As for AEW The 3 Dynamites with just Jim and Excalibur I thought Jim was in top form without Tony. Jim does batter with one other person. Tony can commentate with anyone. Excalibur too. Taz fits in better with as the third mic on Dynamite then JR does.

Rewatching Matt Taven vs. Tracy Williams, has there ever been a worse announcing team than Ian Riccaboni, Colt Cabana, and Jay Lethal? Lethal and Cabana desperately trying to talk over each other, and Riccaboni with his forced "bombastic" announcing. And Jay does not have a future in announcing ahead of him when he finally retires. Honestly, I would rather listen to Bruce Prichard, Mike McGuirk, and Pete Doherty call a match than these three.

Cain could've done well in Mexico and Chicano heavy markets, which is hilarious considering one of the bad takes people had when he was in UFC as champ was he couldn't become a great Mexican-American draw because his Spanish wasn't good. Ryan Garcia in boxing and then Cain's little mini run in AAA proves that was a dumbass notion. I think if Cormier was several years younger and didn't have the bad back he eventually got fixed, Cain and DC could have been a great tag team in pro wrestling cause Cormier can be the talker and would be super motivated. Also, they could have struck a deal to show footage of Cormier ragdolling Josh Barnett and Dan Henderson like he was Vader against some WCW jobber back in the day. That could have worked and been the modern day, more legit Varsity Club (Cain could be in Arizona State colors and DC in Oklahoma State colors). However, Cain didn't really have a shot without Cormier in WWE where they just brought him in so nobody else could get him.

You end up sort of feeling for poor Von Chenok after a while as he keeps hitting the dirt to survive: Just endless headbutts: But ultimately the nerveholds take their toll. I love how both guys sell this.

"Goldbelt" Brian Maxine vs. Mark "Rollerball" Rocco (Middleweight Bout) You sure as hell were right about the rules being "a little more fluid" in All Star! The round system, yellow cards, you won't see any of that from WoS here (besides one public warning which was basically nothing). Rocco jumps Maxine and it doesn't stop from there the entire time. Both guys just hammer each other, Rocco getting dirty and doing stuff like biting and trying to detach the turnbuckle pads while Maxine as the blue-eye did a bit more fluid and snug wrestling while at the same time just trading off with Rocco. They don't let up and the ref seems fine with it. At one point the announcers even say something I believe about him getting heat and having to go to Canada so I think he might be somewhat of a heel ref, but as it is he just treats everything as no-DQ. Halfway through after a crappy no-sell of a Tombstone they go outside and just start waffling each other with road cones! I've always wanted to see that. They use the fire extinguisher as a weapon and a chair and we even get a no-sell of a lowblow before they're finally corralled again. It finally ends with Rocco just plastering Maxine in the junk forehead first as he tries a go-over so the ref counts Maxine down. Ref liked to count a lot too, if you went to a knee you were getting counted and fast, and they did a lot of really nice struggles for pins for him too. Loved the commentary here too with all three guys knocking off one-liners for bits like saying Rocco hadn't had anything to eat before he got to the ring after trying to take a chunk out of Maxine's calf. These guys probably had a hell of a feud over there. Also have to add, I have seen a little of Rocco in New Japan and I think a match or two on a Schneider Comp but he didn't impress much there, here he looks like a beast with the '80s mustache and larger size. This looks like a real neat channel and for sure I'll get around to "Ironfist" Clive Myers (how cool is THAT name?!) and Liger.

Why can't both be true: I think his takes on modern wrestling are usually badly out of touch but still think he is brilliant and as knowledgeable about wrestling and it's history as anyone you can name. A weird example of how his ideas of logic in wrestling influenced how I think: at one of the Tournament of Death shows years back they had people setting up all this incredibly dangerous stuff with no gloves or protection whatsoever and even worse the referee had no sort of protection (don't think he was even wearing gloves) I turned to a friend and wondered why they didn't have everyone in protective gear (like you would see in FMW with the referee wearing a hazmat suit) to sell just how dangerous the match was and he replied "You gave this thing way more thought than they did".

Did they really pull a Hogan in WCW and really bring Cain in just so Brock could avenge a loss from UFC?

I had not seen this one in particular though I've seen plenty of these four in other variations with one another. The Hechicero vs Terry series is both exceptional and varied, for instance. Here though, you have pairings of Hechicero/Navarro and Terry/Virus. This plays pretty well to their respective strengths. I've seen a Hechicero vs Navarro match from a few years earlier where they keep it pretty serious and stoic but by this point Navarro had lost a step and Hechicero had been working CMLL crowds a lot more and they're able to dramatically ham it up more here to the benefit of the match. In contrast, Virus and even a 2/3rds fast Terry brought plenty of substance, both in the initial matwork and the second exchange with rope running. There were a few impressive bombs: Terry's second rope backcracker and Hechicero's amazing top rope elbow decapitation to a standing Navarro especially. What I love about the match, and I know this is going to sound pretentious and I'm sorry for that, is just how inaccessible it is. There's the long exchange in the middle where the partners would keep interrupting holds by putting holds of their own on and switching in and out that way. There was no major sense of urgency to their partners plight. Every hold was more tricked out and complex than the last. They worked a double pin spot in the middle of it and then rolled right back into the back and forth of it. Yet it was all about pride and oneupsmanship and it had a meaning all its own that really isn't textual. Case in point, the only sign of urgency was when Terry rushes in at Virus to break up his pin attempt, the attempt itself, the disruption of the rhythm and balance they were creating, all of it felt like an affront and it was one that led to the shirts coming off and the escalation that brought forth Virus' elimination. This style of wrestling is so symbolic and impressionistic. I don't think it's a world you can stay submerged in for long but it's always a joy to dive headfirst now and again.

In his book, Flair says that he and Perfect had to go to Savage's house to practice the match. He says that because of that he doesn't consider Savage to be a great worker, although he respects him.

I for one am glad Jinder is back. I'm interested in seeing what him vs Drew will look like after the Seth feud. At least they have a backstory. Liv Morgan should beat Becky for the title. Or maybe Nia after Nia beats Becky. Zelina/Andrade vs Garza/Charly is going to rule.

I don’t want to quote box such a long post, so I’ll just agree that was an all-time bad Booker T take by @SorceressKnight. Just woefully off base in nearly every way

1. Listen to Donald Trump 2. Vote for Donald Trump 3. Listen to Donald Trump 4. Shoot Lysol and drink bleach Oddly, I have no problem with folks doing this. I believe the principle is called "Darwinism".

everything about this picture demands to be the promo poster for a buddy cop movie

3 I had the WM VCR game. Usually, I would just watch the match clips rather than playing the game. The heart tattoo on Ax's arm? I'd like to think a kinky ring rat also into BDSM drew that on his arm.