When Announcers Ruin the Fun That’s Left

August 21, 2010 Patrick Hickey Jr. Professional Wrestling, TV 0

While this week’s Raw was nothing to get crazy about on its own merits, especially considering how many of the matches ended- in nonsensical and lackluster fashion, one man, on his one essentially ruined the experience.

Raw announcer Michael Cole was in a league of his own on Monday night, ripping Bryan Danielson one second, getting annoyed at R-Truth’s entrance antics the next and just maintaining a sour attitude throughout. Usually the good cop, to Jerry Lawler’s “bad, but cool” cop routine, Cole was totally off his game.

Who knows how much of this was part of the script and how much was ad-lib, but regardless, the WWE took the low road, at least when it comes to Danielson, making this week’s RAW a lackluster affair.

To call someone like Danielson a 10-year veteran of the minor leagues simply isn’t fair. The fact that he was even on NXT last season was simply a joke and one that show’s the WWE believes it’s in a league of its own. The fact that his “mentor” was The Miz, who in spite of being a solid in-ring competitor, isn’t in the same league as him, was even more of a tragedy.

Make no mistake about it, in spite of his size, Danielson is one of the best pure wrestlers in the world. On top of that, the guy has proven countless times that he doesn’t need a gimmick to be a success. Anyone who knows anything about wrestling has seen his matches in Ring of Honor and in Japan over the years understands that. For the WWE to act like none of that exists is a travesty that will bite them in the rear at some point.

Aside from that, hearing Cole interject on R-Truth’s elongated entrance and ask for him to speed it up, wasn’t classy. Sure, many viewers were saying the same thing in their heads, but for him to say that wasn’t necessary.

Add in the fact that the wrestling action on RAW gets worse every week [A former ECW champion in John Morrison was beaten with a clothesline from Nexus member Skipp Sheffield, which was strong, but nowhere near where a clothesline finisher should be. The one he gave Darren Young was a bit better] and little to no attention has been paid to the World Title and it’s fair to say that this company needs to get back to its roots and fast.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13858 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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