Raw 10-13-14

[Johnny Sorrow]

Greggulator works for WWE right?

Nah, he's just the kind of guy I want to watch shows with.

Besides his irrational hate of the New Age Outlaws, but no one's perfect.

[Phantom Lord]

So I watched the rest of the show earlier. I feel sorry for Nattie being caught up on Total Diva's and having to be the respected vet of the bunch. Cameron had to slap her twice because she whiffed on the first one. You could just see it in Nattie's eyes that she wanted to do like her Grandpa Stu and twist her into a pretzel.

 

The difference between Cena and Ambrose is in that promo Cena did. Cena comes off like hes reading straight off a prompter with all the fake emotion and passion he can muster. Ambrose has such a more natural feel to the way he speaks which is why so many are identifying with him.

 

The match was what it was, but man when Ambrose trying to bite off Cena's thumb when he had him in the STF was so great. Him also trolling Cena by being like "come on you can still stop me...nah" then grabbing the contract was also funny. I love those little things.

[THEmanWITHnoNAME]

Serious question...is the current RAW commentary team the worst commentary team in the history of pro wrestling?

[The Green Meanie]

Serious question...is the current RAW commentary team the worst commentary team in the history of pro wrestling?

 

No, but these two men would like to have a word with you about that:

 

[PetrolCB]

Is that Trongard? If so, you animal!

[MGFanJay]

Is that Trongard? If so, you animal!

He's a liar from coast to coast and border to border.

[mco543]

The Raw team isn't even the worst current commentary team in wrestling. I feel that Corino/Kelly is much, much worse and so is Tenay/Taz.

[Greggulator]

They're not the absolute worst. It's more that they're completely tired.

[Big Fresh]

I can deal with Cole. JBL I still kinda like, but I liked him more when he used to talk about promoters that owed him money. Lawyer is worthless at this point. He adds nothing, clearly hates the show, and is just about the worst color man in history.

[odessasteps]

Bill Mercer and Marc Lowrance say hello.

[Curt McGirt]

How how short ye memories in forgetting Lawler and Heel Cole. And you know, there are commentary teams that have involved Missy Hyatt before.

[ebbie]

It amazes me how people prattle on about bad booking, paper champions and other shit when the most fundamentally thing has been shit for years now: commentary. There's no way commentary today would make you perk up like a sleepy dog hearing a funny noise if you weren't paying attention.

[Hollywood Cibernetico]

If I had to make a top ten worse commentary teams- I don't know if the current team would crack the top ten. This isn't to say they are good, but perhaps I am so sure to the WWE shill and everyone being corporate and on a script that I tune most of it out. How Lawler is still on commentary in 2014 is beyond me.

[E.J.]

I like JBL, at least he'll say something when something is completely ridiculous instead of putting on a fake laugh. But yeah, Lawler really needs to go.

[Web Conn]

Pre-nWo Bischoff & Lee Marshall are worse then the Raw team. They almost kill the DDP Diamond Cutting Hall & Nash segment with their cheesy over the top commentary.

[Greggulator]

Yeah. Cole and JBL are fine. They aren't bad. They aren't great. They're just there. Cole's like the average play-by-play guy you hear doing a Mid-American Conference basketball game in early January on ESPN2.

Cole's worst trait is that he's not Jim Ross. We were blessed with a guy who had a truly great voice and knack for wrestling storytelling for a few decades. We also had Joey Styles for a long time who is really underrated in making ECW what it became -- he's a normal looking person serving as our window into this completely f'd up world. Cole's a generic guy who does an okay enough job hitting the various talking points like he's supposed to. I do like his Fireside Chats with HHH. For some reason he's good in that setting.

JBL's not bad, either. He's fine. I really liked his initial commentary run on Smackdown, but now he's just sort of tired. He tries to add in some unique stuff, like his soccer fandom. But, largely, he's just there. He does at least try and put over heels and does some good work with that sometimes -- i.e., Bo Dallas. But he's largely just "eh."

Lawler sucks and has sucked for pretty much the entirety of his WWF/WWE tenure. I love Memphis Lawler like any right-minded American should. But he's so ridiculously irritating during a lot of the Attitude Era and downright embarrassing to watch at others. He's a grown man dressed a a king calling women's breasts "puppies" for hours. He didn't really add anything that much when he was stoodging as a heel commentator and became even more worthless when he stopped doing that.

If they got rid of Lawler, the announce team would be fine. I'll take what they have now over Tony Schiavonne and David Crockett from the era of wrestling we all really loved.

[Curt McGirt]

Ugh I just remembered BISCHOFF AND MONGO. Beat that one, folks.

[PetrolCB]

Ugh I just remembered BISCHOFF AND MONGO. Beat that one, folks.

THIS, SPORTS FANS! /mongo

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

JBL is the poison in the current announce team. If it was just Cole and Lawler they'd be pretty inoffensive. JBL's shitty heeling, antagonizing, yelling the same shit over and over and always talking like he's cutting a promo is what makes the commentary so unlistenable.

[The Great ML]

Odessa, you shut your filthy mouth, sir...no one disparages nor sullies the name of Bill Mercer or Marc Lowrance! They voiced the Major Leagues of professional wrestling!

 

For a brief time on WCW Main Event, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage called color...at the same time. It was glorious.

[J.T.]

Bill Mercer and Marc Lowrance say hello.

 

Oh my God, I hated Mark Lowrance.  Chris Adams beat Rick Rude in a non-title match and all that fucker had to say was, "That Adams is a fine young man.  The only way he could be more loved by the fans would be if he were a Von Erich."

 

I wanted to puke.  The fucking bias, I swear.

 

No one will ever be better on color than Caudle / Crockett or Rhodes and Macho.

[Patrick B.]

I've heard some bad indy wrestling commentary on local-access TV and the like...

 

One case was two guys who were a couple of the promotion's workers using over-the-top fake voices, alternating between obnoxious shilling of their own product and taking lame jabs at other area groups.
 

Saw another case where I honestly had trouble telling who the faces and the heels were supposed to be.  Normally there's a straight-laced play-by-play guy who backs the faces and an over-the-top color commentator who backs the heels; in this case, one guy was a loud shill for one side and the other guy was a loud shill for the other side.  It got REALLY grating after a certain point.

[Rev Ray]

For a brief time on WCW Main Event, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage called color...at the same time. It was glorious.

 

When you meet the man who did the closed captioning, you salute that man.

[Technico Support]

 

Bill Mercer and Marc Lowrance say hello.

 

Oh my God, I hated Mark Lowrance.  Chris Adams beat Rick Rude in a non-title match and all that fucker had to say was, "That Adams is a fine young man.  The only way he could be more loved by the fans would be if he were a Von Erich."

 

I wanted to puke.  The fucking bias, I swear.

 

No one will ever be better on color than Caudle / Crockett or Rhodes and Macho.

 

 

I'd rather have David "GIT EM DUSTY GIT EM" Crockett than any of these clowns.

[Go2Sleep]

There was some good wrestling on the show this week.

 

I guess I'm the only one who really liked Orton/Ziggler. It definitely sounds like fast forward material these days, but these two have always had good chemistry. The match here was a pretty sound counter-based match that avoided overkill territory because neither guy actually hit most of their big moves. Dolph catching himself on the missed elbow and going straight to the chinlock caught my attention early. Both guys were on point with their timing, and the pacing was totally "vintage good Randy Orton." Finish was nice too, obviously. One of the better surprise RKO spots in a while, and infinitely better than the played-out "countering an imaginary jumping move" spot.

 

Rollins/Swagger was decent too, although not quite as clean as Orton/Ziggler. Seth is really doing a great job making his what-should-be-ideal-babyface style work as a heel. There were a couple pretty inspired sequences in here towards the end like the curb stomp counter and Rollins bringing back the avada kadavra or whatever it was called in FCW. He should probably start featuring it regularly now that Del Rio's gone.

 

Show/Rusev was also pretty good, and they got a lot more to work with than I expected. I think Rusev could actually make a really good face some day. He's an underrated bumper and a great athlete that can pull out surprise high-impact moves, like his king-sized dropkick here. Finish was garbage, but it kept Rusev strong, and I liked the post-match where he got what was coming to him.