THE IMPORTANCE OF WRESTLING MOVES AS IT RELATES TO WWE ANNOUNCERS
By Doug Brown on 6/13/2009 10:16 AM
Can you imagine Joe Buck not calling a home run? What about Al Michaels not calling a touchdown, or Marv Albert not calling a three pointer, or Jim Lampley not calling a knockout? Over the last few years in the world of pro wrestling, WWE head honchos have ordered their announce teams to cut back on the number of wrestling moves they call during the course of a match. When the guys here at Pro Wrestling Insider first reported this, it really made me angry. As someone who has worked as a broadcaster, this goes against everything I was taught in college. The first two things they taught us about sports broadcasting were to know the players' names and know all the terms that go along with that particular sport.
For the logic as to why this decision was made, we need to go back to a promo by Joey Styles following Backlash 2006. This was the promo where he stormed off Raw, and set up for the return of ECW. Styles had often clashed with Vince McMahon over being a "wrestling play-by-play announcer," versus a "sports entertainment storyteller." Styles mentioned in that promo how not making mention of the moves is doing a disservice to the wrestlers, and he is right. However, the McMahons instead want their announcers to focus on telling stories. After all, their motto is, "We don't do wrestling. We make movies." Their point of view was clear when during an episode of Smackdown, Jonathan Coachman informed Michael Cole, "This isn't radio." Things used to not be this way.
Back when I first started watching wrestling in 1986, Gorilla Monsoon was the lead announcer on WWF Wrestling Challenge, and Vince McMahon was the lead announcer on WWF Superstars of Wrestling. Those two guys, and the variety of partners they worked with over the years were perfectly capable of calling the moves and getting the story of the match across at the same time. Seeing these unique moves, learning what they were called, and what they supposedly do to a person helped to lead me to a greater appreciation for the art form that is pro wrestling. Lately, WWE has had a problem with attracting new fans and keeping the older fans around. I think this an area that can be improved upon if you use just a little common sense. For instance, when a new viewer tunes in and sees one wrestler execute an Asai moonsault onto another wrestler, how are they supposed to know what the move is called, if the announcers don't tell them? Do you want to know how bad things have gotten? Here is a rundown of this past week's WWE programming with the matches and the number of moves called by the announce teams:
WWE RAW
1.) Kofi Kingston vs. William Regal - 2 moves
2.) Kelly Kelly vs. Maryse - 1 move
3.) Santino Morella, Goldust, and Festus vs. The Brian Kendrick, Chavo Guerrero, and Jamie Noble - 1 move
4.) MVP vs. Matt Hardy - 4 moves
5.) Primo and Carlito vs. Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase - 5 moves
ECW
1.) Evan Bourne vs. Tony Atlas - 2 moves
2.) Chris Lewie and Luke Hawks vs. Vladimir Kozlov - no moves
3.) Christian and Jack Swagger vs. The Hart Dynasty - 6 moves
WWE Superstars
1.) The Bella Twins vs. Beth Phoenix and Rosa Mendes - 2 moves
2.) Evan Bourne vs. Zack Ryder - 4 moves
3.) John Morrison vs. Chris Jericho - 11 moves
WWE Smackdown
1.) The Great Khali vs. Dolph Ziggler - 5 moves
2.) Melina and Eve Torres vs. Michelle McCool and Layla - 2 moves
3.) John Morrison and R-Truth vs. Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin - 7 moves
4.) C.M. Punk vs. Chris Jericho - 15 moves
5.) Jeff Hardy vs. Edge - 11 moves
As you will notice, the Smackdown announce team did the best job of calling moves. Jim Ross and Todd Grisham called 51 moves in six matches this week for an average of 8.5 moves per match. Though, they weren't exactly perfect. In their Superstars match, three of the 11 moves were called on the split screen replays during the match. In the Smackdown main event, five of the 11 moves were called by C.M. Punk, who was doing guest commentary. The match went three segments. They didn't call any moves during the first segment, only one move during the second segment, and ten moves in the last
segment. In second place was Josh Matthews and Matt Striker from ECW. They called 12 moves in four matches for a 3.0 average. I've been really disappointed in their work lately. With both guys being wrestling nerds, I figured on their pairing being really good. They did really well initially, but lately their have been a lot of awkward pauses during their commentary. Maybe that has to do with Vince McMahon constantly yelling in their ears throughout the entire show, which reportedly chased off Mick Foley and Tazz. The RAW team of Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler check in dead last with 15 moves called in six matches for a 2.5 average. Let me repeat that, RAW is the flagship show and their broadcast team averaged only called two and a half moves per match. While Smackdown has been WWE's best show over the last several weeks, if it were not for Jim Ross, Smackdown's average would be just as low as the other two brands.
Another observation I had was that the lower a guy is on the totem pole, the less their moves get called. This makes the undercard matches seem even more unimportant.
How do they expect us to take the matches seriously when they clearly don't? I know it is unrealistic for them to call every single move. However, it is getting to the point where in a lot of the matches, they are not even calling the big moves anymore. Calling moves isn't the only problem the announcers have. They have to deal with the writers coming up with revisionist history, they are forced to talk about stuff that has nothing to do with the match in the ring, and it is leading to the announcers sounding really bored at times. I asked Dave Scherer if he had heard whether or not WWE started scripting the announcers too, but he said so far they do not. WWE has been known for questionable decision making. Their top play-by-play man is doing color on Smackdown, and their second best play-by-play man is relegated to the company website. Even with that in mind, WWE has some good broadcasters. Now, if they would only take the handcuffs off, and let them just call the action.
