EVALUATING THE DECISION TO REPLACE JOEY STYLES WITH MIKE ADAMLE
By Doug Brown on 4/16/2008 2:06 PM
As many of you read on the site, or may or may not have seen on television, Mike Adamle replaced Joey Styles as the lead announcer on ECW. Styles was "promoted" to running wwe.com. This is yet another in the long line of bonehead moves made by a company that is run by people who are completely out of touch with what its audience wants. In today's column, we are going to discuss the decision in depth, and also evaluate Adamle's first night on the job.
First of all, calling the move a promotion for Styles is garbage. Ever since Styles made his WWE debut at Taboo Tuesday in 2005, he has butted heads with Vince McMahon over the way he performs his on-air duties. The argument was that Styles called the matches like a "pro wrestling play-by-play announcer," while Vince, Stephanie, and Kevin Dunn, wanted him to be a, "sports entertainment storyteller." There was also the argument that Styles was catering his commentary too much to the "internet crowd." To me, that makes the decision to move him to wwe.com even more mind-boggling.
The bottom line is that this is their way of saying that they now believe Styles is no longer even good enough to call the low rated weekly ECW on Sci-Fi program. Joey Styles is a fourteen year veteran wrestling announcer. He is the only announcer in history to call an entire pay-per-view by himself, and did it on more than one occasion. Every year, various wrestling websites rank him the second best play-by-play man in the business behind only Hall of Famer Jim Ross. Let us also not forget that Styles bailed their butts out of the fire. Back in 2005, WWE had decided to get rid of Jim Ross with the thinking being that they were losing ratings because he "looked too old." They tried replacing him with Jonathan Coachman, who was vehemently rejected by the fans. The rejection was with good reason, because Coachman sucked then, and he is still a terrible wrestling announcer to this day. Styles was brought in, and immediately showed why he is popular with the fans, and the only guy worthy of taking the spot belonging to Jim Ross on Raw, with his excellent call of the Ric Flair-Triple H cage match. Styles was later removed from his post, and Ross was brought back, but not before Joey cut maybe the greatest promo ever by an announcer.
In that promo, he brought out a lot of the things that are currently wrong with WWE. He discussed how they wanted him to not focus so much on calling the actual moves in the ring, and Styles responded with how he thought that was doing a disservice to the wrestlers. He had actually started calling the matches the way they wanted to with less naming of the moves, and more idle chatter that had nothing to do with what was happening right in front of them. That's why I was surprised by the switch.
For a long while, WWE has insisted on bringing in guys with little to no experience in wrestling to be their announcers. Following the close of WCW, they could have had experienced announcers like Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson, and Mike Tenay. Instead we continued with the next generation of Todd Pettengills with guys like Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman, Todd Grisham, Steve Romero, Marc Loyd, and Chris Leary. It is funny, because WWE claims whenever they advertise for an announcer that they want someone with knowledge of their characters and storylines. However, the exact opposite is true. As reported here at PWI on many occasions, what they want is someone with no preconceived notions about the wrestling/sports entertainment business. You can just picture Vince telling these guys, "You don't have an opinion unless I give it to you."
Enter Mike Adamle. I know some of you are ready for me to rip Adamle a new one, but I'm not. I like Mike Adamle. I have been a fan of his since the original American Gladiators series. He is a former NFL runningback, and a veteran broadcaster. One of the things that really surprised me about the move was the age issue. One of the biggest reasons that they wanted to replace Ross in 2005 was that he looked too old. In this instance, Adamle is 58 years old, while Styles is just 36 years old. The other is the experience issue. Joey Styles has been calling wrestling matches for the better part of the last fourteen years. Until this week, Adamle had yet to call his first match.
I believe that the move must have been made on the spur of the moment, because Adamle seemed very unprepared when Joey turned over the on-air reigns of the show to him. He barely knew who the wrestlers are, and did not seem to know the names of any of the moves. While I like Mike Adamle, that is about as bad a first night as anyone has had in the 22 years that I've been a wrestling fan. At various points during the night, he seemed totally lost. Tazz did a heck of a carrying job in order to get through the broadcast, and had Adamle been working with Coachman or Lawler as his color commentator, it would have been a complete disaster.
Adamle's first night was not a complete failure. I loved his "Uno, Dos, Adios," line on the pinfall. It was creative, and something different. Overall, I think Adamle can get better. If you go back and watch the American Gladiators reruns on ESPN Classic you will notice a significant improvement in Adamle's skills from the first season to the later seasons. He has just got to make some adjustments in order to succeed in his new position. As an eight year broadcasting veteran myself, I'll pass on these tips.
1.) learn the names of the wrestlers - It's Shelton, not Sheldon Benjamin. Fans are not as stupid as WWE Creative thinks, and it kills his credibility by not knowing who the guys in the ring are.
2.) learn at least some of the moves - Adamle does not have to be a Jim Ross Jr., but it might help establish his credibility with the audience if he at least knows what a clothesline is.
3.) study the history of the business - He does not need to know who beat whom for what title, and when, and where. However, I think it would be helpful to know more about the past stars in the business, and how it got to be as popular as it was.
4.) rehearse - It was clear from the first night that Mikey needs a lot of rehearsal time. Hopefully, when the get back from the European tour, they will get him in the booth at the studios in Stamford, and work on his timing, as well as, his interaction with Tazz.
While I like Adamle, I still question the move to replace Styles. I think it was a bad decision that will hurt what is already a product that is in bad shape. Hopefully, if Adamle will make the commitment to get better, then one day he might be passable as a sports entertainment storyteller/wrestling announcer. Titan Towers is keeping their fingers crossed. We will know more in the weeks to come.
