The Attitude Era

[Vamp]

I think the WWE's public distaste for its own roots speaks volumes about a fundamental division within the company as to what their product is, or should be.

 

On the one hand you have the efforts to sanitrise the product of traces of its old roots as a worked sport. It's not wrestling, it's sport entertainment; they're not wrestlers, they are entertainers; not fans but "WWE universe" and so on.

 

But that's not dividing it. The WWE Universe and drive to make people entertainers (I've got no problem with the sports entertainment word) are part of an overall brand image thing, its not dividing the WWE 'wrestling' product as it were from what they want the image of the overall brand to be.

 

Their house style of announcing is more focused on the big picture than the match itself. I don't mind it too much to be honest. I know what the moves are, so I don't need Matt Striker to tell me.

 

This. I'd rather have annoucers that tell the story than anything else. All the moves in lucha that I don't already have a name for are, in my mind, either 'tiey upy thing' or 'flippy thing' or 'really flippy thing'. And I can understand why they might want to avoid calling things a Fisherman's suplex for example if the guy's gimmick is not a fisherman, because that's to a certain extent how they work. Moves are branded to wrestlers. Although I can't understand why they're not using a fisherman gimmick, world of potential right there.

 

But at the same time, the roster has never been more "real" as people have said - practically everyone's gimmick is "athlete" or just an enhanced version of themselves. To me, this smacks of the long-term influence of UFC on the WWE - the success of two legit fighters bashing away at each other, and the toning down of the in-ring product (removing most of the dangerous headshots etc) has made the show feel more like a real fight card than it did back in the attitude era.

 

Yeah, I seem to remember people clammering for the WWE to be more like UFC at one stage. The problem is the WWE can't compete on the UFC's level, they've got something far better going for them, the fact that they're fiction.

[Loki]

I think the WWE's public distaste for its own roots speaks volumes about a fundamental division within the company as to what their product is, or should be.

 

On the one hand you have the efforts to sanitrise the product of traces of its old roots as a worked sport. It's not wrestling, it's sport entertainment; they're not wrestlers, they are entertainers; not fans but "WWE universe" and so on.

 

But that's not dividing it. The WWE Universe and drive to make people entertainers (I've got no problem with the sports entertainment word) are part of an overall brand image thing, its not dividing the WWE 'wrestling' product as it were from what they want the image of the overall brand to be.

 

You've misunderstood my point slightly - that rebranding and the less characterful roster are the two divisions that I think pull against each other.

 

Their house style of announcing is more focused on the big picture than the match itself. I don't mind it too much to be honest. I know what the moves are, so I don't need Matt Striker to tell me.

 

This. I'd rather have annoucers that tell the story than anything else. All the moves in lucha that I don't already have a name for are, in my mind, either 'tiey upy thing' or 'flippy thing' or 'really flippy thing'. And I can understand why they might want to avoid calling things a Fisherman's suplex for example if the guy's gimmick is not a fisherman, because that's to a certain extent how they work. Moves are branded to wrestlers. Although I can't understand why they're not using a fisherman gimmick, world of potential right there.

 

It's definitely got worse in the last few years, I noticed it more at WM this year than ever before. I don't mind them not religiously calling moves, but.. here's the thing, you and Butch know what they're called because you're old fans. New kids probably think that everything is either a "throw" a "kick" or a "punch". It's like WWE has become its own Allstars type game, and it really doesn't help to sell the different characters in the roster if everyone has the same 3 moves.

 

It all comes down to interesting characters - people watch shows for the characters. People watched wrestling in the 80s for Hogan and Piper, larger than life cartoon characters. They watched in the 90s for Austin, the everyman anti-authority rebel, or the coolness of the nWo. We're all going nuts over Fandango at the moment mainly because he's actually an interesting character, but he only looks good because everyone else is Shelton Benjamin 2.0

 

The one guy who really stood out of the pack for me was Ambrose - he's something different, a bit wild and unusual. Most of the new guys were just wallpaper paste.

[PowerButchi]

Fair enough, but is calling the moves really that important? Is not knowing the difference between a fisherman and northern lights suplex really going to ruin someone's enjoyment? I'd say as long as you make sure you put people's finishers over those are the only moves the people really need to know. Also it puts an end to any ball crushingly boring arguments about why they call a uranage wrong.

[Dirty Eddie]

My take on the calling moves thing is this; when I was a kid (way before both being a smark twat, and the internet existing) I used to love collecting any knowledge about wrestling and the moves was a huge part of that.

 

Basically, kids like knowing as much as they can about the things they like. At school there were the footie fans who knew pretty much every premiership player and everyone who'd been on their team for the last 5 years, The Monty Python geeks who knew all the words to the films, the top trunks obsessives who'd know all the stats the second they saw the picture of the car, etc.. Wrestling moves was one of those things - as least when I was at school. If you were into it, you wanted to know as much as possible.

 

I agree with Loki, if every move is just " a throw" "a strike" or "what a move" you miss opportunities to make people stand out as individuals. It has definitely gotten worse too, JBL used to do a great job calling moves and putting stuff over but this run he's been really flat and far more like the rest of the pack. JR was always better at it too. It's obviously how WWE want it these days.

[PowerButchi]

I agree with Loki, if every move is just " a throw" "a strike" or "what a move" you miss opportunities to make people stand out as individuals.

 

Again, that's why you put over their finishers and signature moves. That lends a talent their individuality. There's no point namedropping every Indian Deathlock and Spinning Toe-hold. Even when you were in school and learning the names of all the moves the WWF announce teams weren't exactly calling it like a sport saying which move is which. Fuck, did they even call Akio Sato's powerbomb a powerbomb once when he was in the WWF? If kids want to learn something, they will. I don't think he needs a tearing up of the house style. The announcing there is shit as it is, I don't think anal Matt Striker-style calling of everything is going to improve it one jot. Obviously call a DDT and DDT, and a bodyslam a bodyslam? But what's the point of differentiating between a load of types of suplex rather then just give it a blanket "Great suplex there by John Cena" or whatever? It's not going to improve it. And it goes against a house style which WWF/E evidently reckon has worked for them for a long long time.

[Dirty Eddie]

Monsoon, Jesse, Jim Ross and the like used to explain far more than just "what a throw" and "what a maneuver" though. I'm not talking about Matt Striker levels of silliness, but call a german suplex a german suplex. It's really only the last 5 to 10 years where they've fazed out mentioning basic names for stuff.

 

It's true that Vince on commentary never really bothered, but most of the other lot did. Again, not to annoying striker levels - but enough to educate the fans.

 

If someone did a move I'd never seen I wanted to know what it was called, it's as simple as that really.

[PowerButchi]

Monsoon? Bollocks. Monsoon used to spend half of his time going on about "Suplex City", seemingly wouldn't know what half the moves were himself, and then would spend his time subtly nearly burying the talent in his own little way. I don't remember Jesse Ventura being too sportscaster-like in WWF either as regards naming loads of stuff. He was with Ross under Watts in WCW, but that's what Watts wants. And when JR was calling a fair bit in WWF towards the arse end of the 90s and early 2000s I remember him catching quite a bit of flak for getting it wrong quite a bit of the time, especially from PS.

 

And who in WWE's commentary team is likely to know the name of a move you've never seen before anyway? I doubt JBL's too au fait with current innovative wrestling moves. What a move is has meant close to less than fuck all to me for quite a while now. As long as it fits in with the story they're telling, and it doesn't look so shite it puts me off, that's all I need to know.

[Vamp]

Plus I seem to remember people used to have a problem with Ross calling things a "modified suplex" or "modified throw" or something. And these days if kids want to know the name of wrestling moves they'll look it up online. And then turn into us.

[Dirty Eddie]

Well, you might think it's bollocks, but it really isn't.

 

I can "literally" hear Monsoon saying stuff like "beautiful belly-to-back suplex there, with a bridge" and Jesse putting over stuff like "bodyslam with an armbar, working on that same left arm again". Things like that.

 

And I was talking about when I was a kid, regarding when someone does a move you've never seen before. I fully expected the announcers to be able to name it (and educate me) and they almost always did.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I can "literally" hear Monsoon saying stuff like "beautiful belly-to-back suplex there, with a bridge" and Jesse putting over stuff like "bodyslam with an armbar, working on that same left arm again". Things like that.

That's psychology based stuff. Not move calling. They liked to put over the motive of the move, not the name of it. And there is a bad side to doing that. Monsoon used to just bury wrestlers. "Well that was stupid, he's never going to get him with that move" was one of his favourites. Monsoon and Jesse were quite overbearing at times when they weren't calling matches that involved the big names. If Monsoon didn't like you, you knew about it.

 

And who in WWE's commentary team is likely to know the name of a move you've never seen before anyway?

Matt Striker could. But he's the biggest knob I've ever heard on the head set. Came across as an arrogant nerd who they eventually chucked off because he unlistenable.

[PowerButchi]

All I can "literally" hear is Monsoon saying "Dropkick, and a beauty!" before going into a 5 minute diatribe about how someone didn't hook the leg thus making them seem thick when the WWF style didn't really include hooking the leg until the winning pin. He'd talk suplexes a lot, but I can't remember him really differentiating between them that much.

 

All I can "literally" hear is Monsoon saying "Dropkick, and a beauty!" before going into a 5 minute diatribe about how someone didn't hook the leg thus making them seem thick when the WWF style didn't really include hooking the leg until the winning pin. He'd talk suplexes a lot, but I can't remember him really differentiating between them that much.

[Dirty Eddie]

I can "literally" hear Monsoon saying stuff like "beautiful belly-to-back suplex there, with a bridge" and Jesse putting over stuff like "bodyslam with an armbar, working on that same left arm again". Things like that.

That's psychology based stuff. Not move calling. They liked to put over the motive of the move, not the name of it.

 

 

Obviously it's psychology based calling of the action, but they still used the right names didn't they. They could have said "dropped him on his neck" and "dropped him on his arm" but they didn't. Instead they used the proper names for the moves. Not all the time or every time, but enough for me (the young viewer) to know what the move is called.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Obviously it's psychology based calling of the action, but they still used the right names didn't they. They could have said "dropped him on his neck" and "dropped him on his arm" but they didn't. Instead they used the proper names for the moves. Not all the time or every time, but enough for me (the young viewer) to know what the move is called.

Monsoon and Ventura (and Heenan) used to always do that. There was more stalling and chit chat during the matches than there is today. Nobody remembers Monsoon and Heenan or Ventura for their ability to bend the action together by letting us know each move (because Monsoon is actually seen as abysmal for actually calling the action by most wrestlers and pundits). They are known for their entertaining chats and bits of wit. Monsoon used to use medical terms instead of naming the moves. "He landed on his swiddley-diddley-funny-bone there" and all that shite. Monsoon has more catchphrases and more "isms" that he needed to get over which took over actually getting the talent over. Monsoons strong point was that he was likable. As far as being a commentator goes, without his lovable straight man act, he's pretty rotten.

[Dirty Eddie]

There was certainly just as much jibber-jabber during matches that didn't involve the actual action particularly, but back in the day if someone did a vertical/snap/gutwrench/side/belly-to-belly/back suplex they'd call it the correct move, not "a throw".

 

I'm not claiming they used to ignore the story and just reel off moves, but they did absolutely know and use the proper names most of the time, rather than using McMahonisms like "whaddamaneuver!!!" all the time.

[Endorphin]

Paul Heyman was my favourite commentator, for the short time he did it. Always tried to put across the psychology of the wrestlers, give explanations for what they were doing. He was passionate as well and had a way with words.