Instant Feedback: No Help from the Booth

How could an announce team yuk and not pay attention to this match?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

I agreed with JBL when he questioned the intelligence of every woman in WWE not named Renee Young, Stephanie McMahon, AJ Lee, Tamina Snuka, or Vickie Guerrero got in the ring to play musical chairs. The segment was exploitative, poorly-executed, and sexist to be quite honest. However, it was meant to sell one of WWE's hottest TV properties and an upcoming pay-per-view. From that point of view, I got annoyed enough at JBL and the other two dweebs in commentary that I went into phase-out mode for the rest of the night. I know the cognitive dissonance in that juxtaposition is staggering, but the announce booth illustrates a problem within the company that scores of commentators and critics have been pointing out for years on end.

Sports and sports-based entertainment are visual arts. They're entirely possibly consumed without the benefit of a third party audio track, which is why the live experience is engrossing in its own way. I don't need to hear someone talk over the action in the ring, which is why if you are going to talk over it, you had better bring something that adds to the narrative, not distracts. One would think that someone in Stamford would see the trend in quality and do something about it. I don't purport to know anything about Titan Towers' inner-workings, but the way the cacophony in the booth has carried on, I can only assume Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn think it hilarious.

The sad part to me is that the team was on point in the first contest of the evening. All three men did their best to put over the legacy of the Intercontinental Championship despite the fact that WWE had treated the then-Champion, Curtis Axel, like a magic bean sprout who'd use his father's half of inherited genetics to yank the fan following he had in his salad days instead of nurturing him like the borderline talent with potential that he was in reality. When Big E Langston finally wrested the belt from Axel's tepid grasp, the moment sitting at home felt big, like the belt mattered for the first time since the early Aughts.

But then musical chairs happened, and the commentary went off the rails. One could argue they weren't given much to work with in that segment, and again, I agree. However, a certain modicum of professionalism is to be expected of anyone dealt a bad hand in their job, especially one as public as being the Voice of God for the current narrative. Additionally, the management seems to expect nothing less than sterling professionalism from their rank and file workers, and curiously enough, when they sent Dolph Ziggler and Damien Sandow to the ring in a feudless gimmick match, they were putting them behind a similar 8-ball.

Yet, Ziggler and Sandow took the Broadway Brawl concept, elevated it, and resuscitated a flagging crowd with a stellar in-ring performance. Those two may not be involved in a story going into TLC, but they'll have deserved one. Every time each one of those guys gets served a shit sandwich in terms of storytelling context, they make the most of it.

These announcers weren't even given an awful show from my view in terms of the overall picture. The wrestling was top-notch throughout the frame, and outside of the musical chairs, I didn't find anything too cringeworthy. But I'm just a shithead writer on the Internet doing this for free. What's their excuse if they're drawing pay for doing the same things they'd be taking to Twitter to slam me for?

And as a post-script, if they were scripted to shit on everything, which is a possibility, then what kind of self-defeating nonsense is WWE Creative pumping out? Either way, something's broken within the WWE's public address, and no matter how good the show is that they produce, something will always seem awry.