- The Wrestling Observer reports that the plan has been to move Jerry Lawler out of the Raw announce team spot for a while and that Smackdown is giving them the opportunity to do so. Dave Meltzer stated that WWE has “wanted to get rid of Lawler on Raw for a long time, but after the heart attack, they figured they couldn’t.” Now that they have relaunched Smackdown on Thursday, they have an ostensible reason to do.

Unfortunately, Lawler is only a small part of the overall problem with the announce team.

^that
The main problem being the guy feeding them the lines.

Zanon wrote:

^that
The main problem being the guy feeding them the lines.

Agreed. Any more, when I tune into Raw, I feel like I'm watching QVC because the announcers are constantly trying to sell me something.

Buy the Network...buy this t-shirt...download the App.

This line of dialog is being fed to Cole, JBL and Lawler (Now Booker T, sucka) directly from VKM and until the focus returns to the in-ring action, I think you'll continue to see the ratings sink.

Yeah the announcing Ross did at Wrestle Kingdom 9 is how it should be done. Treating it as a sport rather than "entertainment."

MooseNugget wrote:

Yeah the announcing Ross did at Wrestle Kingdom 9 is how it should be done. Treating it as a sport rather than "entertainment."

I love when they "legitimise" a match via commentary. I spoke about it during my video review of Takeover R-Evolution (available at all good Minkaro channels now), when they gave a stat about Neville not losing when matches go over a certain length. Things like that really help to engross me in a match, explaining why they're doing what they're doing, explaining the background to the match etc.

You're never going to get that kind of commentary on the main roster ever again

I think the announcers will eventually get better.

They should get Byron Saxton and Corey Graves on the main roster to do commentary.

But being serious, yesterday I watched both TNA and Wrestle Kingdom 9 and it just makes it clear that Josh Matthews is really talented a commentary (and this is a fact, seeing he got Taz to actually do some nice commentary for the whole show, which wasn't really a thing for quite some time now), Matt Striker is also a great addition to any commentary team, and well... Jim Ross is Jim Ross: no one else can make things seem "real" as Ross does.

JBL is nice at commentary but he needs someone better than Cole and Lawler on his side. (and no, not Booker T, despite me liking him at commentary). Cole and Lawler are awesome for Mattel commercials and other stuff. Not for commentary anymore.

I have the fact that like 90% of the moves that happen in matches are just described as a fucking slam <_<

Eeyen wrote:

I think the announcers will eventually get better.

I do too, though I don't see it happening any time in the general near future.