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Good Matches Ruined By HORRIBLE Commentary


Thomas Bugg

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Now I'll preface this post by saying that I've no room to talk, as during my time as a play-by-play guy in small indies I wasn't exactly Solie. But at least only the local crowds, and maybe some obscure Youtube or Facebook videos, were witness to my botchery.

 

I couldn't stand watching ROH on HDNet sometimes because of horrible commentary- Prazak was what he was, either you liked him or hated him, no in-between. But that Hog guy or whatever the fuck sounded like JR's mentally challenged cousin. 

And then I just watched the Cruiserweight Collection on the WWE Network and one of the matches featured was a three way ladder match between the Jung Dragons, 3 Count and Karagias/Knoble from Starrcade 2000. I never watched the PPV before and the fact that it was under Russo's shitty regime only made me more hesitant to watch it, but Meltzer gave this match 4 stars or whatever so I thought I'd check it out. I couldn't make it past the first three minutes of the match. You just know Tony Schiavone had to be thinking, "How in the fuck did I go from Jim Ross, Bob Caudle, Heenan and Tenay to these douchebags??" And not saying that Schiavone was an all time great- he was good whenever he didn't have idiots producing him- but Stevie Ray and Mark Madden? Seriously?

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WCW 2000 in its entirety loses half a snowflake due to the phrase "snoochie boochies".

WWF Light Heavyweight Division suffered via Lawler doing nothing but put over Brian Cristopher, regardless of who was actually in the ring.

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Heel Michael Cole made great matches good, good matches average, average matches bad, and bad matches unwatchable. Actually no he made anything that wasn't a great match unwatchable and even then it was hard to listen to the commentary without stabbing your eardrums.

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Few years ago I went to an FWE show in Brooklyn that had a trios match with the Young Bucks/Petey Williams vs Paul London/Brian Kendrick/Jay Lethal. Live it was a super match with a hot crowd and all six guys clicking nicely... but rewatching it awhile back, you had Michael Schiavello on commentary with all sorts of THIS IS THE GREATEST MATCH IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY~! nonsense. It was horrific.

EDIT: said match.

 

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34 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Heel Michael Cole made great matches good, good matches average, average matches bad, and bad matches unwatchable. Actually no he made anything that wasn't a great match unwatchable and even then it was hard to listen to the commentary without stabbing your eardrums.

That was the only time in my 30+ years of fandom that I actively didn't watch wrestling. I've sat through Ultimate Warrior puking, Hulk Hogan bringing all of his 80s WWF cronies into my beloved WCW, Triple H screwing a mannequin's fake brains out and Mark Henry sleeping with his sister and Mae Young but I could not stand Michael Cole calling everyone nerds, fighting Jerry Lawler and basically voicing Vince's opinion that anyone who watches his show is a fucking moron.

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41 minutes ago, zev said:

WCW 2000 in its entirety loses half a snowflake due to the phrase "snoochie boochies".

WWF Light Heavyweight Division suffered via Lawler doing nothing but put over Brian Cristopher, regardless of who was actually in the ring.

Tony Schiavone from that period reminded me of one of those piano bar musicians on a cruise ship. On the outside he's happy and looks like he's having a good time b/c he's making money but you know he's so dead inside that he beats hookers or cuts himself to escape the pain of playing "Sweet Caroline" 7 days a week.

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6 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

That was the only time in my 30+ years of fandom that I actively didn't watch wrestling. I've sat through Ultimate Warrior puking, Hulk Hogan bringing all of his 80s WWF cronies into my beloved WCW, Triple H screwing a mannequin's fake brains out and Mark Henry sleeping with his sister and Mae Young but I could not stand Michael Cole calling everyone nerds, fighting Jerry Lawler and basically voicing Vince's opinion that anyone who watches his show is a fucking moron.

Same for me in my 25 years of watching this (pretend) sport of kings

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1 hour ago, zev said:

WCW 2000 in its entirety loses half a snowflake due to the phrase "snoochie boochies".

WWF Light Heavyweight Division suffered via Lawler doing nothing but put over Brian Cristopher, regardless of who was actually in the ring.

I dunno there's that great part in the TAKA-Pantera match where it's Lawler and Too Sexy on commentary and the camera keeps doing side-by-side shots of them to emphasize the similarity and JR is just not having any of this "I'm not Jerry's kid" bullshit and keeps calling them on it.  Then Christopher (Or it could be Lawler) gets carried away, calls TAKA a "Jap" at which point you can hear the air sucked out of the room, followed by JR saying something like "Gentlmen, a little decorum" and you can just SEE Christopher's chance at winning the Light Heavyweight title go out the window.  Also, the match is pretty swank with Pantera busting out a dive through the turnbuckles.

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La Parka and Silver King vs. Damian and Ciclope in a Mexican Deathmatch on Nitro in the summer of '99. Schiavone and Heenan completely shit all over what was a fun match, wildly different from anything either promotion was doing at the time. Having heard Schiavone in interviews over recent years, I get the sense someone was in his earpiece telling him to crap on this, and I'm guessing Brain was probably 4 or 5 scotches in by this point in the night. 

 

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The first Hardy Boys vs Edge & Christian Ladder match was ruined by Lawler constantly drooling over Terri (and mentioning that he interviewed her while she was on a ladder and he could totally see up her skirt every 30 seconds).

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3 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

On the outside he's happy and looks like he's having a good time b/c he's making money but you know he's so dead inside that he beats hookers or cuts himself to escape the pain of playing "Sweet Caroline" 7 days a week.

I love this line so much. Totally made my day.

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4 hours ago, Pete said:

Few years ago I went to an FWE show in Brooklyn that had a trios match with the Young Bucks/Petey Williams vs Paul London/Brian Kendrick/Jay Lethal. Live it was a super match with a hot crowd and all six guys clicking nicely... but rewatching it awhile back, you had Michael Schiavello on commentary with all sorts of THIS IS THE GREATEST MATCH IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY~! nonsense. It was horrific.

Speaking of New York feds I remember watching Low Ki take on (I believe) Ricochet on a match that was posted to Youtube- only it was HOG. I hope the fans in Queens liked the match because I couldn't watch it past 4 minutes. Not only was the commentary the shits, but HOG has the worst camera crew I've ever seen, and in the indies that covers a lot of ground. I hoped they fired that entire crew.

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I've come around to Striker more than when I started though he can still be really bad.  Suggesting  Killshot's opponent has PTSD seems like making light of a serious issue.  When he starts making biblical allusions, it's so bad.  So, so bad.

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2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Missy Hyatt made one of those Japanese Hardcore Wrestling DVDs with a match as awesome as Honma/Abby Jr. unwatchable.

I cannot watch my FMW tapes from Tokyo Pop without turning the volume all the way down.  The two dudes on commentary blow goats.

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