Changing Announcers *SPOILERS ... KIND OF*

Whats with wwe and changin the announce team half way through raw? It seems now everyweek one of them (mainly lawler) starts the show and has to be replaced. This weeks raw was partically annoying as it started with J.R, which as a huge J.R fan believe me, hearing his voice as raw came on the air was probaly the best moment in a long time haha ( joking, though it was pretty epic). But then he gets coverered in bbq sauce and goes backstage not to be seen again for the rest of the evening

Is it just me whos finds this annoying? And is it just me who sees this whole cole/lawler feud now ending with an involvement from J.R, i.e some sort of tag team match?

Plus one more thing, can anyone tell me wether J.R is back for good?

cheers 8)

I feel the constant change of announcer changes recently have been to to sell the fact Lawler/Cole can't co-exist together, i'd also think JR was only there to help Cole build heat, i've not found it tiresome yet

I think WWE has serious problems with its announcing. The announcers are there to build familiarity between the audience and the product. How can there be any familiarity when they are changing every 5 minutes?

The main announcer should also be someone the audience trusts and feels comfortable with. JR was perfect for this role, but he was taken off TV for being "too Southern" and because his face wasn't considered TV-friendly. I think this was a huge mistake which can't be underestimated.

The audience isn't able to build any kind of trust in Michael Cole because he is a heel. He's a very good heel at that, so he should be taken off commentary and used solely as a manager. Josh Matthews just seems like a little boy (though he is a decent commentator) and doesn't command authority and trust the way Ross did.

WWE needs to decide, for better or worse, who is going to be the play-by-play commentator for each brand. And it shouldn't be a heel. And once the decision is made, stick with it so that the audience can build a relationship with that commentator. When you chop and change the commentary team it gives the product a sense of unfamiliarity. Looking at the candidates for this job, Jim Ross stands out as the best by a long way.

From what I read at the time, Vince McMahon feels that Jim Ross was to old for regular live TV on RAW, if thats the case then fair enough, McMahon does have a history of taking the old gaurd off TV, if thats what he feels works then fair enough, however if thats the case, and I agree with Davies here, the WWE do at this moment in time have a serious lack of guys able to fill in that position, now the one guy forgotten about is Joey Styles, this guy for me should never have been taken off commentary and should have been groomed as JR's long term successor a long time ago.

I realise that his job at WWE.com seems to be of massive importance and his work on that has seen a big leap in traffic to the site after it plummeted, but I don't see any real reason why he can't manage a two hour slot on RAW every week either

the-gaffer wrote:From what I read at the time, Vince McMahon feels that Jim Ross was to old for regular live TV on RAW, if thats the case then fair enough, McMahon does have a history of taking the old gaurd off TV, if thats what he feels works then fair enough, however if thats the case, and I agree with Davies here, the WWE do at this moment in time have a serious lack of guys able to fill in that position, now the one guy forgotten about is Joey Styles, this guy for me should never have been taken off commentary and should have been groomed as JR's long term successor a long time ago.

I realise that his job at WWE.com seems to be of massive importance and his work on that has seen a big leap in traffic to the site after it plummeted, but I don't see any real reason why he can't manage a two hour slot on RAW every week either

Yeah, if nothing else hearing him squeal "Oh my Gahd!" always makes a spot sound better

It's not just that for me, he had a familiarity about him, whether that is why Vince doesn't want him as a voice on his shows or not is anyones guess, but like Davies says, you do need that familiarity, that trusting voice, I felt Styles had that, he sold what he saw

Also coming from ECW there is that feeling that he is a true wrestling man and not some journalist student from university looking to use this as a route into the main media world.

Exactly, I don't know if that would be a ghood thing or a bad thing in McMahons eyes, for me it woudl be a great thing in the eyes of Wrestlign fans, but god forbid WRESTLING becomes the reason for anything to be promoted in the WWE

the-gaffer wrote:Exactly, I don't know if that would be a ghood thing or a bad thing in McMahons eyes, for me it woudl be a great thing in the eyes of Wrestlign fans, but god forbid WRESTLING becomes the reason for anything to be promoted in the WWE

Horribly, there is a conceivably a time when VKM would consider renaming World Wrestling Entertainment as World Sports Entertainment...

if that happened I think we would all stop watching

I'd be perfectly happy to see Styles back at the table, but I think it's very unlikely. There are so many things working against him. He is primarily associated with another promotion, for a start. He also has the exact opposite style of what Vince likes, for example Vince doesn't like his commentators to say the names of moves unless they are a wrestler's signature moves. Styles' strength was always his deep knowledge of holds and moves. He does at least bring some passion and enthusiasm to a show, but if he's not feeling it (and WWE these days is hardly ECW!) I'm not sure that passion will be there. I think Styles is much happier working on the website than having Vince screaming in his ear in a commentary job which no longer has any security.

There are reports that Ross is mentoring Scott Sandford. Yes, the D-Show guy on Sky Sports. Apparently he is actually coming along well.

"Davieswasacrippledtart" for example Vince doesn't like his commentators to say the names of moves unless they are a wrestler's signature moves. Styles' strength was always his deep knowledge of holds and moves.

No doubts why he got rid off striker then, he used to go into stupid amounts of detail. He was god-aweful though, you could tell all of his reactions were pure scripted, specialy when he used to give a little speach when someone won a title, about how it was there time etc etc. Was so cringeworthy i found myself wanting to punch the guy square in the face and just say ' SHUT THE F*** UP!' haha.