DavidB6937 Posted August 10 Posted August 10 Can't disagree with the above much, but I do also find Joe a struggle. He sounds so bored just reading off stuff. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 5 hours ago, Chris B said: I saw the clip of Wade Barrett getting excited about the Oasis entrance - has Cole always looked so *miserable*? He looks like the most dead person on earth in that clip. I kind of remember him having a mostly anxious style, but now he just looks utterly bored, disengaged and miserable. It's the weirdest thing. Well he's been doing commentary every week for almost 30 years on some of the worst wrestling TV ever created so I don't blame him. Quote
d-d-d-dAz Posted August 10 Posted August 10 (edited) 21 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: Well he's been doing commentary every week for almost 30 years on some of the worst wrestling TV ever created so I don't blame him. And some of the best, to be fair. There was plenty of good in that window that you'd think would perk him up a bit. I get you think it's all rubbish and everyone who holds any affection for WWE style wrestling is a mince-headed mad man, but you'll find plenty of good WWE TV between 1996/1997 and now. Edited August 10 by d-d-d-dAz Quote
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said: And some of the best, to be fair. There was plenty of good in that window that you'd think would perk him up a bit. I get you think it's all rubbish and everyone who holds any affection for WWE style wrestling is a mince-headed mad man, but you'll find plenty of good WWE TV between 1996/1997 and now. Relatively little though. I hate them now but I didn't always. And even when I was still watching religiously or when I went through periods of desperately trying to cling on to my random, 90% of the shows were tripe. Even when he got a shot in place of JR in the last boom period in 1999, the TV and particularly the PPVs were Russo driven shit. Poor Maggle. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 (edited) 2 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said: I get you think it's all rubbish and everyone who holds any affection for WWE style wrestling is a mince-headed mad man, but you'll find plenty of good WWE TV between 1996/1997 and now. Mince-headed mad man.... Yes mate, I know there's been plenty of good WWE TV since 1997, I watched and enjoyed a lot of it! But anyone denying there's been more bad periods than good periods since then is delusional. There's been years of awful stuff and Michael Cole has sat through all of it and had to pretend it was great. Think how many Seth Rollins matches he's been subjected to, the poor fucker. Even if it was all great and even if I was a huge Michael Cole fan I don't begrudge the man for being completely checked out. Doing the same difficult job every week for years on end would crush anybodies spirits. I heard he was also going deaf in one ear which must be rough on him. Edited August 10 by LaGoosh Quote
Paid Members JLM Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 (edited) Even during the heyday of the bloodline when I was a huge fan of that angle, any praise for WWE would still have the caveat of “obviously I’m not sitting through three hours of raw but X segment/angle was great”. I’ve found that quite funny during a couple of the recent “boom” periods where people say they’re on a creative roll but still would never sit through the entire show, as if that’s a given. Other TV shows don’t get that same sort of pass at all. Regardless, the reason I bring that up is that Michael has to sit through the whole show every time, when one bit was good and 90% was shit, when 100% was shit, even during the best times where quite a bit of it was good he’d have to wade through the shit. I do sympathise with him on that. However, I have always ALWAYS hated him as an announcer. I don’t doubt that not having a psychopath screaming in his ear for the whole show has helped, but this idea that we’re seeing the real Cole expressing himself now that he’s free of Vince? I’ve never bought it. He’s still a weird little pod person doing an awful approximation of human emotions to me. Also when he DOES seem to be enjoying himself it’s in a snivelling little nerd-who’s-friends- with-jocks type of way, like Richard Hammond in Stewart Lee’s Top Gear bit. Barrett is almost as excruciating, with his Clarkson/Andy Parsons-esque affected manner of speaking that cuts right through me. I totally agree that even with my slightly higher overall tolerance for WWE’s presentation than LaGoosh, I do have to tune both of those fuckers out to to get to what I want to see. Edited August 10 by JLM Quote
Paid Members gmoney Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 (edited) Cole is a herpes tier commentator and anyone who says otherwise has to be a cretin. I'm against snobbery generally when it comes to wrestling taste, but he is objectively bad. I've been critical of Excalibur, but it should be understood that he's like Gordon Solie compared to MC. Never been any good, even that UK tournament people rave about his performance on. He was better than he normally is, which meant he briefly reached scabies tier. Edited August 10 by gmoney Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 (edited) Excalibur is good at calling matches but terrible at calling angles, segments, transitions...basically anything not a match. Wrestling as a whole right now is seriously lacking in decent commentators. And Cole is the worst of the lot. Edited August 10 by LaGoosh Quote
Paid Members gmoney Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 (edited) Yeah, there's been a dearth since the late 90s basically. Which is a shame because during the 70s and 80s there was an abundance. I just miss the old sports-caster voice which essentially doesn't exist anymore. Edited August 10 by gmoney Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 (edited) It was funny when Vince fucked off, Michael Cole was allowed to sound slightly less like a Prisoner of War, and everyone was suddenly acting like he was brilliant. Happy or sad, he’s still shit. Always has been. Always has will be. Least authentic-sounding human alive. Anyone who ever dares suggest he’s anything beyond dog shit should be made to list their three favourite Michael Cole calls from his near thirty year career. I genuinely couldn’t name a single one. Edited August 10 by Supremo Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted August 10 Paid Members Posted August 10 "For the love of Mankind, Shane has been broken in half!" Made even worse by him being caught live on camera reading it off a piece of paper. Quote
d-d-d-dAz Posted August 11 Posted August 11 Aa ever, only seen what's available on Instagram but... put both titles on Solo and leave it at that. PEW 🔫 Quote
Chili Posted August 11 Posted August 11 Michael Cole's "best" period was the 2002-2005 run with Taz which isn't unlistenable. There are points he's even skirting competent. I dunno what he sounds like now, but his 2010 until whenever Jerry Lawler had the heart attack is legitimately THE WORST commentry of all time. Yeah it's Vince going mental and using Cole as an instrument to bury everything, but Cole is so full on and shouting over everyone AND getting to be all against the rules of a heel, but winning every argument sometimes through logic breaking comments against the kayfabe of the story, that it's a period of wrestling you can't watch because it's unlistenable... And they chucked Matt Striker and a complety checked out nonce next to him. It's an audio gulag. His greatest call that Sami Zayn/Knoxville match. That match did something to his brain and for about 10 minutes you hear Michael Cole properly enjoy himself, he's having such a good time you hear Cole genuinely laughing, which science almost written off as impossible. Quote
Paid Members Lenin Posted August 11 Paid Members Posted August 11 13 hours ago, Supremo said: Always has been. Always has will be. Least authentic-sounding human alive. Then. Now. Forever. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted August 11 Posted August 11 There's a reason Cole loves Cena so much. I'm pretty sure they were made in the same factory. Quote
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