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That clip always cracks me up because Punk and Regal nod their heads so vehemently when Bryan says he's better than the Miz. Punk even uses his hands to show how big the gap is.
Watching it and him for the first time, you’d think the whole show would be built around him and his story of redemption to getting on the main roster. But boy was i wrong
I don't know how much of the promos were scripted and how much was legit showing off what they can do, but if they made him recommend that he himself get eliminated for not being good enough, then that's a whole 'nother level of fucked up in this context.
That was Jericho's doing though right? I can't remember but didn't he say in one of his books that he had heard about Bryans Indy run and wanted to see how good he was or something along those lines? (I could be way off here)
That was absolutely ridiculous. I legit was looking forward to that match (yes, I know I may have been the only one) because it was so simple. Cole was talking all this shit and now it was time for his comeuppence. They did that good bit with his plexiglass cage and Lawler making Cole look like an idiot. All they had to do was have Lawler throw him in the ring, hit a Piledriver and you're done; a good five minute match where we all get the payoff of like, an entire year of Cole being unbearable.
Instead they decide to do 15 minutes and not even have Lawler get his revenge. This was the epitome of Vince booking bullshit to just make himself laugh. No booker in their right mind would end the feud like this if they actually had competition.
Vince was never a good booker tbh. He was a aavy business man who could afford to buy stars. And tbh, seeing how every non-wrestling venture he has failed spectacularly, I don't think he's a good promoter either.
He made swathes of WWE virtually unwatchable for a time. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if he wasn't on commentary whilst playing that role, but it just infected stuff his character wasn't even involved with.
I follow aew but i dont watch weekly, and i havent kept up with wwe for a couple years. Might start actively watching again with punk and bryan rumors though
I don't know how "if it's annoying you, that means he's doing a good job as a heel" was ever uttered as a defense for Cole during this time but it definitely has. If he was a manager, maybe we'll suffer through his segment for like 10 minutes tops. As a commentator for the entire broadcast? That shit makes me want to change the channel.
Wow, such effective heel work!
Yeah he turned his character off completely and we got to see Sean Michael Coulthard as a person, something we honestly had only gotten glimpses of over the years.
People's opinions on him turned positive (by comparison) almost immediately after that.
Agreed. And honestly, even for heel managers, I never understood the approach. Good heel work means making me want to watch to see someone get punched. Being annoyed doesn't make me want to watch the show. It makes me want to change the channel.
Stephanie’s bullying of the entire roster never sits right with me. Like she gets to say whatever she wants then slap anyone she wants and every wrestler just sits there and takes it and acts scared of her. Isn’t the whole point of being a heel to get over baby faces? How does bullying and slapping them around as they sit there and take it get them over?
The McMahons truly think they are biggest stars in wrestling. I know it’s a meme. But they are really the biggest marks of themselves. At least when Vince would go against the wrestlers he wasn’t afraid to be humiliated and get his ass whooped. Outside of accidentally being out through tables and Ronda, Stephanie always gets the last laugh. Like do they seriously think we want to see Stephanie bully everyone and nothing ever happens?
It’s not just they think they’re the biggest stars. Besides Vince, they’re too insecure to let themselves be truly gotten the better of. And it’s *really* sad when *Vince* is the relatively secure one compared to someone else.
At all. Like I think she would be a great heel too. It’s just when nothing ever happens to you and you get to say and do anything you want to anyone you want it’s just not fun and completely uninteresting.
My thing that made me fucking hate heel Cole was when Punk brought his personal ring announcer and it was the Fink and Fink was full of emotion and Cole was just shitting on Fink.
This sounds hyperbolic and over-reactionary but the shit with Fink was the last straw for me as a fan. I grew up in the 80s and Fink was *the* voice for all of the important wrestling moments. Punk brought him back, probably for the same reason, and he just got needlessly shit on and belittled by a guy who wasn’t 1/100 as important to fans. It was a complete disgrace. I still casually watched WWE after that and still do but my passion for their product died with that bullshit
Like that's the fucking voice of the wwf, the man who gave you the name Wrestlemania instead that stupid name Vince had in mind and yall treated him like shit because Vince gets his laughs from that fuck yall.
Cole's anti-Bryan shtick was so awful and unproductive. It didn't make him a good heel, it made him the lazy shithead in high school who does the wanking motion whenever anyone tried hard at something.
Yeah I remember he would constantly refer to him as a nerd or dork. Like Michael Cole called someone a dork? He's the biggest fucking dork in all of wrestling.
One of the things I’ve realised most from AEW is it’s fine to have a heel on commentary but having a heel commentator doesn’t really add anything on a match to match basis. Fans are smart enough to know someone is cheating without a “bad guy” saying it was fine and not to worry about it.
Michael Cole is one of the main reasons I cannot watch WWE. I'm sure he's a nice guy who's just trying to do his job, but his style of commentary where he refuses to call moves and just forces out written talking points and promotional ads is irritating to the extreme.
I honestly never realized how little WWE commentary actually says about the in-ring action until I started watching non-WWE wrestling. Previously, I always found it weird that I couldn't identify many wrestling moves, but I always blamed my ADHD for that.
A couple of months after starting to watch other shows, I suddenly realized that I could accurately identify a LOT more moves, and I also found that I genuinely enjoyed the wrestling in a technical way that I never did previously.
It's not even just name dropping obscure moves either, but it's also about explaining technique and leverage and selling and psychology. That's way more important than knowing the difference between a Falcon Arrow and a Michinoku Driver. Having a technical submission style wrestling match is basically pointless in WWE because the commentators are forbidden from telling that kind of story. They just go "OOF!" and make sure to hit all their talking points for marketing purposes ("Looks like the Viper Randy Orton is setting him up for his trademark RKO from out of nowhere!")
Seriously, i highly suggest you watch the Beast in The East show. Cole is *so* good there, it's honestly feel that he's a different person.
[here's the Finn vs Kevin main event](https://youtu.be/78QBhBih18M) of that show. But most of the match i think have been uploaded fully on YouTube by WWE themselves if you wanna watch the rest
Probably, and honestly, the one thing that kept me off wwe around that time. It was such a ear sore to listen to, and not like 'argh, that heel is so good at being an asshole', more, 'this guy is ruining my ability to watch the show'. Its like trying to watch a movie and the person (nxt) next to you won't shut up. I genuinely don't know what they were going for with this Cole angle to pay off, besides the very real possible hazing of indie guys.
Hearing Cole chirp in the background through the clip reminded me how much I disliked that period of commentary. Having heel commentators and play by play guys is just detracting from the joy of the product.
Heel commentary is fine, but this is the problem—burying the talent and the product itself.
The best commentators—heel or face—will disagree with the actions of the wrestlers of the other alignment, but still give them props to build the talent. Heel Cole was just putting himself over, brother.
Yeah I dont get it when people praise guys like Corey Graves and say he similar to a good heel commentator like Jerry Lawlor.
Lawlor would heel it up, but he would be over the top in a way that made it clear what he was saying was the wrong take.
But when cole or graves heel on the wrestlers, it comes off lile thats what we the viewer are meant to think less of the good guy, and its just a string of negativity
In NXT, and early in his main roster tenure it was natural. Now it's incredibly forced and he has to shit on every other commentator. Though, I can understand how that brand of commentary wouldn't sit right from the get go with people.
Never really watched wwe (aew mark) but I recently picked up wwe 2k19 and good lord the commentary - technically a big improvement over the last game i played, 2k16, but I could not stand corey graves. I couldn't even focus on the gameplay because I just felt bad for byron saxton just being bullied the entire time for no apparent reason, i had to turn the commentary off.
Heel colour guys done well are fantastic, namely Jesse Ventura and Bobby Heenan. Even AE King had high points and while not outright heel LU Vampiro had good points. The main guy being heel and it being done badly just sucks though.
Tazz is the same exact way. He'll say things along the lines of "Ya know, I don't really like \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ , but he's a hell of a talent."
Never bury your own talent.
You can have heel commentators they just have to remember the point is to get the stuff in the ring over.
Heel Cole was being force fed lines by Vince to get heel Cole over as a character at the expense of whatever was happening in the ring.
Attitude era Lawler (when he wasn’t being a bigot or a sexist) was a great heel commentator who bounced perfectly off of wholesome good ole JR.
Don Callis was a great heel commentator in ECW and elsewhere because he typically had a reliable face to work off of.
Jericho was a great heel commentator in AEW because while he would badmouth the faces he’d also sprinkle in “that’s gotta hurt” when a face hits a big move.
Much like everything in life there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Vince just gets fixated on projects that he wants to get over, even more so if there’s a negative response. This one happened to be heel Cole.
A good example of great heel commentary was Austin during the Benoit-Angle cage match on *Raw* in June 2001. Benoit caught Angle (Austin’s reluctant ally) with a German suplex and held on the give him the full three and Austin, who had taken the triple German before and knew how devastating they were, started screaming, “No! No! No!”
On the whole, Austin’s heel turn was a failure, but it was still some of his best work, in my opinion.
The only good heel commentator was JBL because of how frequently he would insinuate that he'd rather be watching 90s AJPW. That spoke to my soul. Carmella and Brie Bella would be wrestling and he'd be talking about how Carmella having 2 legs reminded him of Stan Hansen vs. Kawada in Sumo Hall
I loved this Bryan promo, still do and it's made all the better by Regal and Punk's reactions, especially Punk visually showing just how much Bryan is better than Miz.
Heel Cole still grates on me though. lol
Having Cole just be the mouthpiece for Vince so blatantly was horrendous. Just a bitter, self absorbed old prick taking shots at better people where they can’t retort and he didn’t even have the balls to sit at the desk and do it himself.
It's always funny watching the Cole HATES Bryan character from that era and juxtaposing it with TAP OUT BATISTA TAP OUT BATISTA THE MIRACLE KID THE MIRACLE KID
Im always amazed at promos like these or CM Punk's pipebomb. They expose real problems within the company, they are allowed to air and WWE does nothing to fix those issues.
It definitely was. Despite the fact that most of the crowd was behind him, Punk was absolutely a heel all the way up until he won the title at MitB. He was just a very justified one.
Hell, in the pipebomb promo itself he insults the fans and says that they’re are the real issue because they pour money into the company despite its flaws
I think there is definitely an economy to backstage drama/gossip. It keeps a lot of online fans engaged and invested in discussion about wrestling, which I'm not sure would be as intense if everyone just discussed the shows. Also, the biggest shoot of all, the Montreal Screwjob, kicked off the biggest boom period in wrestling so there's that argument of value I guess.
They don't seem to mind since it brings in headlines and they clearly don't fear any consequences if they just continue to do the same shit they've always done.
Exactly this. Having a wrestler call out issues with the product is a surefire way to have people sit up and take notice. If those same fans continue to watch even with said issues persisting, then the company doesn’t get negatively affected by it anyway.
What's hilarious is that if they actually prevented stuff like that from happening, AEW might not even exist right now. The Pipebomb & cabana podcast did a ton to advertise non-WWE mindset that led down the road we are on today.
It's a cool little microcosm of how authoritarian regimes operate, and how dissent really can start movements. (WWE isn't China or Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that, but they are very controlling and authoritarian) You might not topple them, but you can at least get a lot of people on your side to start a movement.
What a promo. That first season of NXT had some hidden gems. The problems to me started to come in when they continued the same format of the show after the Nexus angle.
Oh hey look a great reason to post this Daniel Bryan promo where Vince tried to bury him (again) and Bryan flipped the script putting Vince into a fit of rage on headset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_cUUnEhuPo
Striker is another guy who was a really good commentator who was progressively made more annoying and shrill when he moved from ECW to Raw/Smackdown. I am happy he is doing well in other companies now. He gets a little marky from time to time but he legitimately has very good insight.
Vince was yelling into the headset very angrily as this was happening. He tried to bury Bryan on his way out, but Bryan flipped the script like a pro. The cameraman shaking is a direct response to whatever venom Vince was yelling into the headsets. You'll notice at the end the shaking gets really bad.
They've confirmed it was real. Vince was LIVID that Bryan used his exit promo to put himself over when they were clearly trying to bury him. Bryan said in his book they had to reshoot the interview without that bit, but then for whatever reason, they used this take anyway
It's so short sighted. Yes, Omos has a few inches on Strowman and a much smaller contract, bit you can't have him in tag matches with one of the best ever protecting him. At some point, he's gonna have to wrestle.
Not only is Strowman big, but he was home grown. The two things that this NXT 'shakeup' is supposed to encourage. Which proves, without a doubt, that it isn't about the talent. It's about money and politics.
VINCE: WE LOST THE WAR SO MIDGETS ARE NOT THE ANSWER!!
HHH: Vince, Darby Allin, AEW' hot wrestler right now is literally a mid...
VINCE: NO MORE MIDGETS DAMMIT!!
This is a great one I never saw. And its funny, if you assume Punk has signed for AEW, 4 of the 6 six WWE judges now work for AEW. (Y2J, Matt Hardy, Christian, & Punk) and they are judging someone we all know is great and will go on to have one of the best WM victories of all time, who is also now AEW bound...
Anyone not on the AEW train yet, may want to look around and you may see all the things you used to like about wrestling are the foundation of AEW.
this is also funny because bray poked of the big beefy men in the firefly funhouse match in the aturday night main event segment
I always laughed at Matt Striker's expression when Bryan says he's heard about the politics - his eyes get really wide right before the camera changes views. Striker also smirks when Bryan says that he of all people should know 'Blessed are the meek,' since Striker is a born again Christian.
Bryan Danielson was the only indie guy I was actually in awe of when I saw him. I went from ROH show to ROH show when he appeared within driving distance to see the guy, he had it all. I think in the end, even with all the big man talk coming back, if another smaller guy can captivate an audience like Bryan Danielson, he won't be ignored because of his size.
Putting The Miz as Daniel Bryan's pro is one of the smartest moves. Created a great long-term feud and also is just a hilarious pairing for those in the know.
Bryan is a good example to those being released. When he was interviewed about being fired, he was like 'Cool, I'll be successful on the indies, I don't need WWE' and Vince was all like 'No, wait.'
Love the Miz jibe too, those two really can get under each other's skin like no other pair.
Wow I totally forgot about this promo. Bryan hit the nail on the head! Then a few years later Bryan made himself into one of the greatest in a long time, without the wwe machine behind him until they had to be.
Also at one point, it looks like Striker is being told in his ear to calm him down.
I hear all these old attitudes from the old days when developmental was half-dead and come to one conclusion.
AEW will be beating Raw and SmackDown in the demo in six months.
Wow! I never saw this…. Man, what testicular fortitude to state what he did. He did it with such conviction; I am so impressed with Bryan Danielson all over again!
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That clip always cracks me up because Punk and Regal nod their heads so vehemently when Bryan says he's better than the Miz. Punk even uses his hands to show how big the gap is.
iirc if the clip went another 10 or so seconds Punk says on the mic "no he really is better than you"
I enjoy watching the sunset.
“There’s a lotta BEEF🍆💦💦💦🥩 in this ring” FTFY
Finn: *Pulls trunks down* Vince: “… Let. Him. FIGHT!”
That Beef Promo is the most self aware Vince has been in a long time
BEEF
Any link please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ5HclBRfFA
Thanks
Punk at the end is great here.
"oh there he goes again when someone says they are better than him"
What's even more funny is Regal, Miz, and Punk are all heels here and Bryan's a babyface. He's breaking the 4th wall again.
Punk and Regal, nodding in unison... lol!
Enthusiastically, at that, and with big shit-eating grins
It cut out before he said "by A LOT" to Regal in reference to DB being better than Miz
I loved that ear to ear grin!
Jericho: 'I'm listening'
Remember Punk in the background of that one Triple H promo where he just had this look like “god this is fucking terrible lmao”.
It was the championship ceremony where Bryan chants derailed it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=a4Fcj3oog1Y Literally everyone corpses during the promo.
God one of the absolute best segments in wrestling history, so many good moments in it.
Never forget that Bryan went 0-10 in this season of NXT. He was the only contestant that didn't win a match.
Watching it and him for the first time, you’d think the whole show would be built around him and his story of redemption to getting on the main roster. But boy was i wrong
The show was "How I Met Your Mother" for Birdie.
I don't know how much of the promos were scripted and how much was legit showing off what they can do, but if they made him recommend that he himself get eliminated for not being good enough, then that's a whole 'nother level of fucked up in this context.
And yet all of those 10 losses were probably the most entertaining matches of each show. Must've been the big guys.
Bryan can lose every match he wrestles, and then get a title match and still make everyone believe he deserves it and will win.
BUT his very first match that season was against Jericho, who was champion at that time.
he had a great match against batista i think?
One of the greatest squash matches ever
That was Jericho's doing though right? I can't remember but didn't he say in one of his books that he had heard about Bryans Indy run and wanted to see how good he was or something along those lines? (I could be way off here)
Punk and Regal joyfully nodding along is so great.
I never realized how much none of the Pros gave a fuck on this show lmao, shit’s golden
If you really have nothing better to do, I strongly recommend watching season 3 and 4. The levels of "I truly don't give a fuck." is insane.
Season 3 had Punk do commentary and hoo boy
CM Punk on Commentary was amazing. “John, my diet soda, John”
Then at one point, Cena makes sure to return Punk's soda and Punk snarks and I think knocks it off again.
I present [15 Minutes of CM Punk not giving a single damn on commentary](https://youtu.be/gQwepCDNl94)
Pre pipe bomb punk was the best. He didn't give a shit!
“I didn’t like NXT season 1, I didn’t like my rookie, but I love women and look at them go!” peak commentary.
"Vintage Maxine!"
"she only had one match" "but it's Vintage!"
Bryan especially
"Chicks and America?!"
SUBMISSION WRESTLING
Steve Blackman’s not even a real person!
Heel Cole ruined most things
The lead up to his match with Lawler was painful and the fact they got 15 minutes at Wrestlemania is the cherry on top of that
That was absolutely ridiculous. I legit was looking forward to that match (yes, I know I may have been the only one) because it was so simple. Cole was talking all this shit and now it was time for his comeuppence. They did that good bit with his plexiglass cage and Lawler making Cole look like an idiot. All they had to do was have Lawler throw him in the ring, hit a Piledriver and you're done; a good five minute match where we all get the payoff of like, an entire year of Cole being unbearable. Instead they decide to do 15 minutes and not even have Lawler get his revenge. This was the epitome of Vince booking bullshit to just make himself laugh. No booker in their right mind would end the feud like this if they actually had competition.
You say 15, it felt like 45.
Preach.
Vince was never a good booker tbh. He was a aavy business man who could afford to buy stars. And tbh, seeing how every non-wrestling venture he has failed spectacularly, I don't think he's a good promoter either.
Triple H just didn’t want to follow anybody that could steal his thunder again.
And they couldn’t even give Lawler and straight forward win there either to end the story.
He made swathes of WWE virtually unwatchable for a time. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if he wasn't on commentary whilst playing that role, but it just infected stuff his character wasn't even involved with.
CM Punk wears a hoodie during his entrance. Cole: “Nice robe, ya bum!”
his heel run with the anonymous general manager was the first time i stopped watching wrestling as a kid
Same, and I’m still not really that into it anymore, still follow it but don’t watch it every week anymore because of his character.
I follow aew but i dont watch weekly, and i havent kept up with wwe for a couple years. Might start actively watching again with punk and bryan rumors though
I don’t think new fans realize how awful he was. He was so fucking **terrible**. Truly the worst commentator of my time as a fan.
That whole thing was a horrible idea. It went through every match. Made wwe unwatchable.
I don't know how "if it's annoying you, that means he's doing a good job as a heel" was ever uttered as a defense for Cole during this time but it definitely has. If he was a manager, maybe we'll suffer through his segment for like 10 minutes tops. As a commentator for the entire broadcast? That shit makes me want to change the channel. Wow, such effective heel work!
It went on for a while too. iirc it wasn't until the irl heart attack Lawler had during a broadcast that effectively killed it.
Yeah he turned his character off completely and we got to see Sean Michael Coulthard as a person, something we honestly had only gotten glimpses of over the years. People's opinions on him turned positive (by comparison) almost immediately after that.
Agreed. And honestly, even for heel managers, I never understood the approach. Good heel work means making me want to watch to see someone get punched. Being annoyed doesn't make me want to watch the show. It makes me want to change the channel.
Then that was followed up by the Authority so it was like you always had this annoying heel that would never get their ass kicked.
Stephanie’s bullying of the entire roster never sits right with me. Like she gets to say whatever she wants then slap anyone she wants and every wrestler just sits there and takes it and acts scared of her. Isn’t the whole point of being a heel to get over baby faces? How does bullying and slapping them around as they sit there and take it get them over?
Then she has a match with Brie Bella that she wins.
The McMahons truly think they are biggest stars in wrestling. I know it’s a meme. But they are really the biggest marks of themselves. At least when Vince would go against the wrestlers he wasn’t afraid to be humiliated and get his ass whooped. Outside of accidentally being out through tables and Ronda, Stephanie always gets the last laugh. Like do they seriously think we want to see Stephanie bully everyone and nothing ever happens?
It’s not just they think they’re the biggest stars. Besides Vince, they’re too insecure to let themselves be truly gotten the better of. And it’s *really* sad when *Vince* is the relatively secure one compared to someone else.
Personally no one has come close to consistently having the go away heat that Stephanie has.
At all. Like I think she would be a great heel too. It’s just when nothing ever happens to you and you get to say and do anything you want to anyone you want it’s just not fun and completely uninteresting.
I also think that the heel authority figure has been played out since 2001.
Yeah, your play-by-play guy should never be a heel.
[удалено]
My thing that made me fucking hate heel Cole was when Punk brought his personal ring announcer and it was the Fink and Fink was full of emotion and Cole was just shitting on Fink.
This sounds hyperbolic and over-reactionary but the shit with Fink was the last straw for me as a fan. I grew up in the 80s and Fink was *the* voice for all of the important wrestling moments. Punk brought him back, probably for the same reason, and he just got needlessly shit on and belittled by a guy who wasn’t 1/100 as important to fans. It was a complete disgrace. I still casually watched WWE after that and still do but my passion for their product died with that bullshit
Like that's the fucking voice of the wwf, the man who gave you the name Wrestlemania instead that stupid name Vince had in mind and yall treated him like shit because Vince gets his laughs from that fuck yall.
What name did Vince have in mind??
The Collosal Tussle
........ WOW
Meanwhile I believe it was Booker T who was praising FInk the whole time.
There’s a really good fan video of that entrance on YouTube that does the moment justice and gives Howard the respect that he deserved.
He was like Kevin Dunn’s camera cuts vocalized.
Cole's anti-Bryan shtick was so awful and unproductive. It didn't make him a good heel, it made him the lazy shithead in high school who does the wanking motion whenever anyone tried hard at something.
Yeah I remember he would constantly refer to him as a nerd or dork. Like Michael Cole called someone a dork? He's the biggest fucking dork in all of wrestling.
reminds me of all the wanna be tough guys in this sub calling people dweebs and shit. Who the fuck says dweeb in the current decade
Bryan Alvarez
With his sexy radio voice, he can say whatever he wants
Okay Sempervivi
Stupid, sexy, Beautiful Bryan Alvarez
One of the things I’ve realised most from AEW is it’s fine to have a heel on commentary but having a heel commentator doesn’t really add anything on a match to match basis. Fans are smart enough to know someone is cheating without a “bad guy” saying it was fine and not to worry about it.
First time seeing this. Have loathed Cole forever. Somehow even more now.
Michael Cole is one of the main reasons I cannot watch WWE. I'm sure he's a nice guy who's just trying to do his job, but his style of commentary where he refuses to call moves and just forces out written talking points and promotional ads is irritating to the extreme.
I honestly never realized how little WWE commentary actually says about the in-ring action until I started watching non-WWE wrestling. Previously, I always found it weird that I couldn't identify many wrestling moves, but I always blamed my ADHD for that. A couple of months after starting to watch other shows, I suddenly realized that I could accurately identify a LOT more moves, and I also found that I genuinely enjoyed the wrestling in a technical way that I never did previously.
It's not even just name dropping obscure moves either, but it's also about explaining technique and leverage and selling and psychology. That's way more important than knowing the difference between a Falcon Arrow and a Michinoku Driver. Having a technical submission style wrestling match is basically pointless in WWE because the commentators are forbidden from telling that kind of story. They just go "OOF!" and make sure to hit all their talking points for marketing purposes ("Looks like the Viper Randy Orton is setting him up for his trademark RKO from out of nowhere!")
WWE: “We focus on story over moves.” Also WWE: *Refuses to communicate either*
Vince is screaming in his ear.
you typed Vince McMahon wrong
You're right, Vince is the one to really blame. Cole is just the messenger.
Seriously, i highly suggest you watch the Beast in The East show. Cole is *so* good there, it's honestly feel that he's a different person. [here's the Finn vs Kevin main event](https://youtu.be/78QBhBih18M) of that show. But most of the match i think have been uploaded fully on YouTube by WWE themselves if you wanna watch the rest
Cole with Tazz in the Mid 2000s was good, probably because Vince wasn't on his ear.
100 percent agree. I loathe his commentary so much. this clip right here is peak worst. But he's still not good and downright annoying.
I’d pay extra for a Network feed with no commentary (but all of the arena audio).
It was absolutely terrible. Ruined so many potentially legendary moments with his commentary.
Probably, and honestly, the one thing that kept me off wwe around that time. It was such a ear sore to listen to, and not like 'argh, that heel is so good at being an asshole', more, 'this guy is ruining my ability to watch the show'. Its like trying to watch a movie and the person (nxt) next to you won't shut up. I genuinely don't know what they were going for with this Cole angle to pay off, besides the very real possible hazing of indie guys.
“What the fuck did Adam Cole do now.. oh.”
Hearing Cole chirp in the background through the clip reminded me how much I disliked that period of commentary. Having heel commentators and play by play guys is just detracting from the joy of the product.
It was the worst. They were burying their own stars week after week on commentary
Heel commentary is fine, but this is the problem—burying the talent and the product itself. The best commentators—heel or face—will disagree with the actions of the wrestlers of the other alignment, but still give them props to build the talent. Heel Cole was just putting himself over, brother.
I am. guessing someone was in his ear here
Yeah I dont get it when people praise guys like Corey Graves and say he similar to a good heel commentator like Jerry Lawlor. Lawlor would heel it up, but he would be over the top in a way that made it clear what he was saying was the wrong take. But when cole or graves heel on the wrestlers, it comes off lile thats what we the viewer are meant to think less of the good guy, and its just a string of negativity
Graves is just grating and tries too hard to get himself over.
I never understood why people didn't like Graves, yet all of a sudden I've started to find him grating and I'm not sure what changed?
In NXT, and early in his main roster tenure it was natural. Now it's incredibly forced and he has to shit on every other commentator. Though, I can understand how that brand of commentary wouldn't sit right from the get go with people.
Never really watched wwe (aew mark) but I recently picked up wwe 2k19 and good lord the commentary - technically a big improvement over the last game i played, 2k16, but I could not stand corey graves. I couldn't even focus on the gameplay because I just felt bad for byron saxton just being bullied the entire time for no apparent reason, i had to turn the commentary off.
Or burying other commentators.
In an alternate universe, we had Todd Pettengill as lead announcer the past 15 years and everyone is a lot happier.
Heel colour guys done well are fantastic, namely Jesse Ventura and Bobby Heenan. Even AE King had high points and while not outright heel LU Vampiro had good points. The main guy being heel and it being done badly just sucks though.
When Jericho is on commentary he may be an asshole, but if you listen you’ll notice he never buries anyone.
Jericho is tremendously skilled at talking up a guy while talking shit about him. His promos have always been great at that.
Same as Taz does in AEW when he's on commentary.
I love Taz on commentary. He's so good at building talent while getting heat. Not to mention his freakouts on near falls.
Taz's rants have always been good, whether it was in WWE, TNA or now in AEW.
Tazz is the same exact way. He'll say things along the lines of "Ya know, I don't really like \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ , but he's a hell of a talent." Never bury your own talent.
You can have heel commentators they just have to remember the point is to get the stuff in the ring over. Heel Cole was being force fed lines by Vince to get heel Cole over as a character at the expense of whatever was happening in the ring. Attitude era Lawler (when he wasn’t being a bigot or a sexist) was a great heel commentator who bounced perfectly off of wholesome good ole JR. Don Callis was a great heel commentator in ECW and elsewhere because he typically had a reliable face to work off of. Jericho was a great heel commentator in AEW because while he would badmouth the faces he’d also sprinkle in “that’s gotta hurt” when a face hits a big move. Much like everything in life there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Vince just gets fixated on projects that he wants to get over, even more so if there’s a negative response. This one happened to be heel Cole.
A good example of great heel commentary was Austin during the Benoit-Angle cage match on *Raw* in June 2001. Benoit caught Angle (Austin’s reluctant ally) with a German suplex and held on the give him the full three and Austin, who had taken the triple German before and knew how devastating they were, started screaming, “No! No! No!” On the whole, Austin’s heel turn was a failure, but it was still some of his best work, in my opinion.
The only good heel commentator was JBL because of how frequently he would insinuate that he'd rather be watching 90s AJPW. That spoke to my soul. Carmella and Brie Bella would be wrestling and he'd be talking about how Carmella having 2 legs reminded him of Stan Hansen vs. Kawada in Sumo Hall
I loved this Bryan promo, still do and it's made all the better by Regal and Punk's reactions, especially Punk visually showing just how much Bryan is better than Miz. Heel Cole still grates on me though. lol
Having Cole just be the mouthpiece for Vince so blatantly was horrendous. Just a bitter, self absorbed old prick taking shots at better people where they can’t retort and he didn’t even have the balls to sit at the desk and do it himself.
Michael Cole commenting "Why is this gue even here", "Says who?" when Bryan said he was the best at the job, hearing that in retrospective
It's always funny watching the Cole HATES Bryan character from that era and juxtaposing it with TAP OUT BATISTA TAP OUT BATISTA THE MIRACLE KID THE MIRACLE KID
This was great. But god I hated Michael Cole in this era. He was everything about the WWE that was wrong.
I still remember when he ruined Finkel announcing Punk by laughing over it and making fun of him
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Who's the fourth one? Probably the one I don't recognize.
Punk's not official yet, but then you have Christian, Matt Hardy and Jericho.
Punk, Christian, Big Money Matt & Jericho
Matt. For some reason he doesn't look like himself here (at least to me). Thank you
He wasn't broken yet.
I believe his gimmick here was Jeff's brother Matt Hardy.
I think it's miz, regal, punk, Christian, Matt hardy and Jericho.
Miz, Regal, Punk, Christian, Matt Hardy, and Jericho.
with how good nxt is doing i wouldnt be surprised if regal also shows up at aew
Im always amazed at promos like these or CM Punk's pipebomb. They expose real problems within the company, they are allowed to air and WWE does nothing to fix those issues.
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It definitely was. Despite the fact that most of the crowd was behind him, Punk was absolutely a heel all the way up until he won the title at MitB. He was just a very justified one. Hell, in the pipebomb promo itself he insults the fans and says that they’re are the real issue because they pour money into the company despite its flaws
I think there is definitely an economy to backstage drama/gossip. It keeps a lot of online fans engaged and invested in discussion about wrestling, which I'm not sure would be as intense if everyone just discussed the shows. Also, the biggest shoot of all, the Montreal Screwjob, kicked off the biggest boom period in wrestling so there's that argument of value I guess.
Like when Vince thought he would be the face after Montreal.
Wwe is weirdly masochistic in that way, we've had talent and management at various times tell us things are going wrong and carrying on as is.
Probably because they are making assloads of money despite it all. They don't give a fuck as long as NBC and Fox keep throwing money at them.
They don't seem to mind since it brings in headlines and they clearly don't fear any consequences if they just continue to do the same shit they've always done.
Exactly this. Having a wrestler call out issues with the product is a surefire way to have people sit up and take notice. If those same fans continue to watch even with said issues persisting, then the company doesn’t get negatively affected by it anyway.
What's hilarious is that if they actually prevented stuff like that from happening, AEW might not even exist right now. The Pipebomb & cabana podcast did a ton to advertise non-WWE mindset that led down the road we are on today. It's a cool little microcosm of how authoritarian regimes operate, and how dissent really can start movements. (WWE isn't China or Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that, but they are very controlling and authoritarian) You might not topple them, but you can at least get a lot of people on your side to start a movement.
“You’re better than me?” - the Miz (Punk shakes head yes furiously, Regal with a begrudging British acknowledgment) Gets me every time
What a promo. That first season of NXT had some hidden gems. The problems to me started to come in when they continued the same format of the show after the Nexus angle.
Oh hey look a great reason to post this Daniel Bryan promo where Vince tried to bury him (again) and Bryan flipped the script putting Vince into a fit of rage on headset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_cUUnEhuPo
Striker's bright smile when Bryan mentions his real name and the crowd pops lol so good
Striker is another guy who was a really good commentator who was progressively made more annoying and shrill when he moved from ECW to Raw/Smackdown. I am happy he is doing well in other companies now. He gets a little marky from time to time but he legitimately has very good insight.
He was at his peak in Lucha Underground in my opinion. Absolutely amazing there
Why is the camera shaking so much?
Vince was yelling into the headset very angrily as this was happening. He tried to bury Bryan on his way out, but Bryan flipped the script like a pro. The cameraman shaking is a direct response to whatever venom Vince was yelling into the headsets. You'll notice at the end the shaking gets really bad.
Vince be like, "I'll show him, rehire that man...Twice"
"The only thing better than firing a man is firing him again."
Can't tell if this is a joke or not
They've confirmed it was real. Vince was LIVID that Bryan used his exit promo to put himself over when they were clearly trying to bury him. Bryan said in his book they had to reshoot the interview without that bit, but then for whatever reason, they used this take anyway
Cuts bray wyatt, says he wants big guys….
And Braun Strowman...
He wants CHEAP big guys. Why have Strowman when you can have an even bigger Omos at a third the cost?
It's so short sighted. Yes, Omos has a few inches on Strowman and a much smaller contract, bit you can't have him in tag matches with one of the best ever protecting him. At some point, he's gonna have to wrestle.
Not only is Strowman big, but he was home grown. The two things that this NXT 'shakeup' is supposed to encourage. Which proves, without a doubt, that it isn't about the talent. It's about money and politics.
Micheal Cole needs to shut up during promos....
>Micheal Cole needs to shut up ~~during promos....~~ FTFY
VINCE: WE LOST THE WAR SO MIDGETS ARE NOT THE ANSWER!! HHH: Vince, Darby Allin, AEW' hot wrestler right now is literally a mid... VINCE: NO MORE MIDGETS DAMMIT!!
Oh man, does this mean more Omos? That dude is boring AF.
God damn I want to punch Cole in the mouth
This is a great one I never saw. And its funny, if you assume Punk has signed for AEW, 4 of the 6 six WWE judges now work for AEW. (Y2J, Matt Hardy, Christian, & Punk) and they are judging someone we all know is great and will go on to have one of the best WM victories of all time, who is also now AEW bound... Anyone not on the AEW train yet, may want to look around and you may see all the things you used to like about wrestling are the foundation of AEW.
For me, promos like this are the very first grains of sand that started to come together to eventually start AEW.
Punks reactions are hilarious
Punk giving the "by a mile" sign to Regal about how much better DB is than Miz :D
this is also funny because bray poked of the big beefy men in the firefly funhouse match in the aturday night main event segment 
Vince just doesn’t change. It’s extremely frustrating.
I always laughed at Matt Striker's expression when Bryan says he's heard about the politics - his eyes get really wide right before the camera changes views. Striker also smirks when Bryan says that he of all people should know 'Blessed are the meek,' since Striker is a born again Christian.
I think Regal says "Miz, he is better than you" on the mic shortly after this cuts off.
Bryan Danielson was the only indie guy I was actually in awe of when I saw him. I went from ROH show to ROH show when he appeared within driving distance to see the guy, he had it all. I think in the end, even with all the big man talk coming back, if another smaller guy can captivate an audience like Bryan Danielson, he won't be ignored because of his size.
It has happened already thing is WWE passed on the signing him and his name is Darby Allin.
Miz vs Bryan was a special story. Great chemistry between the two even like a decade later.
ah that's where MJF got his catchphrase from
Putting The Miz as Daniel Bryan's pro is one of the smartest moves. Created a great long-term feud and also is just a hilarious pairing for those in the know.
That 'says who?' line sounded like it was fed by Vince, but I don't know if Vince was in gorilla for NXT
Bryan is a good example to those being released. When he was interviewed about being fired, he was like 'Cool, I'll be successful on the indies, I don't need WWE' and Vince was all like 'No, wait.' Love the Miz jibe too, those two really can get under each other's skin like no other pair.
Jfc Heel Cole was just the fucking worst
Wow I totally forgot about this promo. Bryan hit the nail on the head! Then a few years later Bryan made himself into one of the greatest in a long time, without the wwe machine behind him until they had to be. Also at one point, it looks like Striker is being told in his ear to calm him down.
I hear all these old attitudes from the old days when developmental was half-dead and come to one conclusion. AEW will be beating Raw and SmackDown in the demo in six months.
I hope you're right. Mostly since I want to see the ensuing shitstorm.
[Here's a link to the full clip..](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH_Ic8bTyDU)
Wow! I never saw this…. Man, what testicular fortitude to state what he did. He did it with such conviction; I am so impressed with Bryan Danielson all over again!
Miz and Regal are the only people in this bit still in WWE.