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[Kano on the Phone]

Oh that's right....aaahhhahahahahahaha!! I remember that. And then went into one of those conversations about it like they would cover up the mics so keep it on the d/l.

Which brings up a similar thing...

For those who groan at how awful and repetitive Cole, Lawler and JBL can be, but remember the "good times" of Gorilla and Heenan:

GET OFF IT!!!

Heenan/Vince/Gorilla was just as bad with their token phrases, poor calling of the match(es), and general dialogue. Some of it was hilarious, sure. But man, much of it was just groan-worthy. Check out the old matches and tell me I'm wrong. ;-)

And just for kicks, my 5 personal faves in order:

Joey Styles (PbP) > Mike Tenay (WCW/color) > Jim Ross (Early WWF era) > Vince (New Gen era) > Lawler (Attitude Era; color)

Heenan and Monsoon had chemistry, a clear face/heel divide, and Heenan was hilarious. Anyone is going to be repetitive if you're watching weeks worth of content in a week.

That said, I don't think anyone has really hated on Cole in years. He's come a long way from where he used to be and for my money, JBL is awesome as the other half of his commentary. King is garbage.

Just caught your edit:

And just for kicks, my 5 personal faves in order:

Joey Styles (PbP) > Mike Tenay (WCW/color) > Jim Ross (Early WWF era) > Vince (New Gen era) > Lawler (Attitude Era; color)

That sounds like most peoples' bottom five except for Ross. Even Styles has admitted he was shitty at commentary before coming to WWE. Tenay is boring, Vince was a vanilla play by play guy who thought every count was a three count, and Lawler just screamed at tits for the entire Attitude era.

 

[Hasney]

Because they would be willing to pay it, and realistically, after a year, if you are using the service, you probably would as well

I wouldn't. Netflix and the like have set a precedent for this kind of service and that would be way overpriced.

 

[Ithil]

My favourite WWE commentary team was JR and Paul Heyman, even if it was only for a short time.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

My favourite WWE commentary team was JR and Paul Heyman, even if it was only for a short time.

I watched WM17 and the Raw before it where they bought WCW. Heyman and JR's chemistry and ability to sell anything was the standout.

 

[Zach]

Because they would be willing to pay it, and realistically, after a year, if you are using the service, you probably would as well

I would most definitely not. I'm loving the Network, but $10 a month is the max I'll pay. I mean, $11+ might be worth it for someone who buys PPVs regularly, but I've never been that guy.

 

[Guileless]

Does this have Jimmy Hart videos?

 

[DMczaf]

Does this have Jimmy Hart videos?

There's a Jimmy Hart Channel where you get Jimmy Hart's versions of contemporary top 40 hits.

 

[Zach]

Best announcers, in order:

Bobby "The Brain" Heenan
Jesse "The Body" Ventura
Jim "The Sauce" Ross
Tony "Biggest Night in Wrestling" Schiavone
Dusty "If You Wee-ill" Rhodes
Gorilla "WILL YOU STAHP?!" Monsoon
Vince "One-Two-THREEHEGOTHIMTHREETHREE!!! -- No, no, only a two-count" McMahon

I must say, though: I enjoy the little bit I've heard from the main play-by-play guy on NXT and of course Willy Regal. They could jump into that list if I keep paying attention to that show.

Also, I'm watching the second Starrcade right now and there's a simple charm to the team of Gordon Solie and Bob Caudle. Solie probably deserves a spot on the list, but whatever. I'm sure I'm missing someone else awesome...

 

[Man God]

Gorilla is the worst play by play man they ever had. Knew even less than Vince who usually at the very least knew their names (not always but better than Gorilla)

HOWEVER

The chemistry between him and both Jesse and the Brain is incredible and elevated the product.

 

[Kano on the Phone]

Best announcers, in order:

Bobby "The Brain" Heenan
Jesse "The Body" Ventura
Jim "The Sauce" Ross
Tony "Biggest Night in Wrestling" Schiavone
Dusty "If You Wee-ill" Rhodes
Gorilla "WILL YOU STAHP?!" Monsoon
Vince "One-Two-THREEHEGOTHIMTHREETHREE!!! -- No, no, only a two-count" McMahon

I must say, though: I enjoy the little bit I've heard from the main play-by-play guy on NXT and of course Willy Regal. They could jump into that list if I keep paying attention to that show.

Also, I'm watching the second Starrcade right now and there's a simple charm to the team of Gordon Solie and Bob Caudle. Solie probably deserves a spot on the list, but whatever. I'm sure I'm missing someone else awesome...

This is the thing that stands out the most to me watching Vince's commentary. Every count was a three.

"ONE...TWO...THREE! We have a new champion and he's celebrating and the people love him and he's walking to the back and he's showering and now he's in his car he's out for drinks he's at his hotel he's getting married his wife is having a child and now another child now he's retired and old and now he's dead...nope, that was just a two count. That was close!"

 

[Zach]

This is the thing that stands out the most to me watching Vince's commentary. Every count was a three.

"ONE...TWO...THREE! We have a new champion and he's celebrating and the people love him and he's walking to the back and he's showering and now he's in his car he's out for drinks he's at his hotel he's getting married his wife is having a child and now another child now he's retired and old and now he's dead...nope, that was just a two count. That was close!"

The man really sells it... >_>

 

[Liquidsnake]

What are you watching this Friday night?

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

I just watched the first Souled Out, it was awkward as hell. What was with that "Miss NWO" contest and them all being ugly and old, and Bischoff was all about them?

I did like the commentary because it matches today's WWE commentary style. Bagwell's out there getting "Bagwell sucks" chants, and Bischoff sells it with "Look at these fans out there chanting for Buff Bagwell. He's so popular."

 

[Ferny]

Just rewatched One Night Stand 06 and holy shit that hardcore match with Edge/Foley vs Funk/Dreamer was great. I forgot how much Edge was really "rated R" with the way he pinned Beulah and all.

 

[bigkrev]

I wouldn't. Netflix and the like have set a precedent for this kind of service and that would be way overpriced.

The argument is MLB/NHL/NBA all charge 30 a month

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Just rewatched One Night Stand 06 and holy shit that hardcore match with Edge/Foley vs Funk/Dreamer was great. I forgot how much Edge was really "rated R" with the way he pinned Beulah and all.

I watched that a few months ago and decided it's my favorite hardcore match of all time. Everything comes together so much better than you expect it would.

 

[Edgeward]

I like Foley's matches against Orton at Backlash 04 and Edge at WM 22 better

 

[Vylash]

Just rewatched One Night Stand 06 and holy shit that hardcore match with Edge/Foley vs Funk/Dreamer was great. I forgot how much Edge was really "rated R" with the way he pinned Beulah and all.

Yeah that match was really great, I should watch it again

 

[superpickleman]

Yeah that match was really great, I should watch it again

The whole PPV was great. Heyman's promo for the return of ECW got me all excited and hopeful. I thought the matches were indicative of what the new ECW would be (and to their credit the first few weeks of the show were decent - EDIT: as far as matches went.). Then it reality happened and everything went to shit.

 

[Hasney]

The argument is MLB/NHL/NBA all charge 30 a month

Lol Christ, they really need to get out of this "we are a sport" mentality.

If they did do that, then hopefully the UK one is without the live PPVs and is cheaper.

 

[Mr. Enigma]

I made it halfway through Spring Stampede 2000 before having to shut it off. Holy shit, what garbage.

What's hilarious is that 7 months later, they couldn't even get 1,000 people in that same arena for Nitro.

 

[strobogo]

Lol Christ, they really need to get out of this "we are a sport" mentality.

If they did do that, then hopefully the UK one is without the live PPVs and is cheaper.

We are a sport until we show people who have done terrible things, and then we are actors portraying characters.

I made it halfway through Spring Stampede 2000 before having to shut it off. Holy shit, what garbage.

What's hilarious is that 7 months later, they couldn't even get 1,000 people in that same arena for Nitro.

It's the worst. Just the worst.

 

[brain_stew]

William Regal is by far and away the best commentator that WWE have at the moment. He has such an uncanny knack of really selling the characters and the importance of every action in a match.

He made NXT Arrival feel so much more important than it was.

With regards to the network in the UK. The WWE have just signed a new deal with Sky, they were always going to make good bank from it with Sky desperate to secure all their rights with BT Sport proving the strongest competition they've ever faced. There's no way WWE didn't retain their online rights, the network is the future of the company and is far more important than any TV deal.

 

[Host Samurai]

Best commentary. Heenan/Gorilla (I live their voices), Jim Ross, Lawler (NG era), Styles and Hayes...I'll even throw Haymen in there

Tenay, Tony S, WCW Heenan were garbage. Heenan should have went NWO and he would have been great on commentary. Heenan as a face just doesn't work

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Why the f are these jerks talking about increasing the price to $20, $25 a month?!

ha no. Sub canceled if it goes that high. Happy with $10 a month, or £5.98 in the Queen's lovely money.

 

[Johnny Ryall]

Watched Insurrextion 2001 last night as it was one of the PPVs from that era I'd not seen what with the UK shows not really being that common on DVD.

Anyway the in ring work was fine but the booking was stupid. I know these are glorified house shows but the show starts with a skit saying that Linda has ordered the whole card to be changed. I don't know if this was a work or if there was issues with visas or what but that came off a bit rinky dink.

Then the main event - handicap 2 on 1 HHH and Stone Cold vs Undertaker with the stipulation that if Stone Cold is pinned he loses his WWF title. The finish? Undertaker pins HHH and gets no belt through his own stupidity. What an idiot his character came off as. I know they never change titles on UK only PPVs and they want to send the crowd home happy but you couldn't have Austin win and then have a dark match afterwards?

Stupid show.

 

[Guileless]

There's a Jimmy Hart Channel where you get Jimmy Hart's versions of contemporary top 40 hits.

SOLD!

 

[strobogo]

Best commentary. Heenan/Gorilla (I live their voices), Jim Ross, Lawler (NG era), Styles and Hayes...I'll even throw Haymen in there

Tenay, Tony S, WCW Heenan were garbage. Heenan should have went NWO and he would have been great on commentary. Heenan as a face just doesn't work

Tony/Bobby/Dusty is nearly as good as Gorilla/Brain. Tenay fucking sucked, always sucked, and still sucks to this day. He ruins everything.

 

[NameGenerated]

So I was watching ECW Heat Wave 1999, Taz vs. Tajiri. And at the end Taz puts Tajiri in the tazzmission with barbed wire around his wrist on the entrance ramp. Joey Styles is constantly saying to keep a far away, wide (hard) camera shot. You basically can't see what's happening. Then Tajiri passes out or whatever and afterwards they finally zoom in on just Taz and his wrist tape is covered in blood. Why couldn't they show it up close? Was it an agreement with the ppv distributor to not show too much violence or what?

 

[GQman2121]

So I was watching ECW Heat Wave 1999, Taz vs. Tajiri. And at the end Taz puts Tajiri in the tazzmission with barbed wire around his wrist on the entrance ramp. Joey Styles is constantly saying to keep a far away, wide (hard) camera shot. You basically can't see what's happening. Then Tajiri passes out or whatever and afterwards they finally zoom in on just Taz and his wrist tape is covered in blood. Why couldn't they show it up close? Was it an agreement with the ppv distributor to not show too much violence or what?

Wrestling is not real. It was simply for effect to give the illusion that Taz was practically killing him.

 

[strobogo]

Wrestling is not real. It was simply for effect to give the illusion that Taz was practically killing him.

It actually was a PPV thing. They were told they would be fined and or dropped from PPV if they did close ups during the barbed wire stuff, so they made sure it was a wide shot and kind of had Joey reference it on commentary.

 

[Malajax]

Just got off the phone with WWE Network Support. Tried to fall asleep to some WWE Network action on my PC only to be prompted to subscribe to the Network... Which I have been since it launched. Log in from my ipad is fine. Log in from my phone is fine. What gives?

Turns out its google chrome. Works fine from Internet Exploder. The support associate noted that they were having an issue with chrome and are working to resolve it soon.

Anyone else have this issue? Yay launch bugs...

 

[geomon]

Just got off the phone with WWE Network Support. Tried to fall asleep to some WWE Network action on my PC only to be prompted to subscribe to the Network... Which I have been since it launched. Log in from my ipad is fine. Log in from my phone is fine. What gives?

Turns out its google chrome. Works fine from Internet Exploder. The support associate noted that they were having an issue with chrome and are working to resolve it soon.

Anyone else have this issue? Yay launch bugs...

It has never worked on Chrome for me. I get the constant loading wheel.

 

[Mr. Enigma]

So I was watching ECW Heat Wave 1999, Taz vs. Tajiri. And at the end Taz puts Tajiri in the tazzmission with barbed wire around his wrist on the entrance ramp. Joey Styles is constantly saying to keep a far away, wide (hard) camera shot. You basically can't see what's happening. Then Tajiri passes out or whatever and afterwards they finally zoom in on just Taz and his wrist tape is covered in blood. Why couldn't they show it up close? Was it an agreement with the ppv distributor to not show too much violence or what?

They were very close to their national TV deal with TNN and executives were watching. They didn't know Taz and Tajiri were going to do that spot, so they kept a far shot in an effort to keep them from pissing off the TNN people.

 

[strobogo]

It has never worked on Chrome for me. I get the constant loading wheel.

Weirdly, Chrome is the only one working for me right now. Trying any on demand stuff on IE or Firefox sends me to the live stream, where as it works perfectly on Chrome.

 

[Gigarator]

Chrome never has a problem loading anything for me, but it does have some odd and very off putting bug where the video seems to flash a frame completely off center every once in a while. Opera on the other hand is a gamble if it'll ever bother loading a video up, and if it does it has a different issue where it'll just keep jumping ahead by around 5 seconds pretty often.

I wont infect my computer with IE so no idea how that performs.

 

[Caspel]

Yeah that match was really great, I should watch it again

That was the first "ecw" PPV I showed my gf and she now wants to watch ecw above all else.

 

[Recall]

Have they blocked europeans reaching the Network? As I can't access it at all. I just keep getting the "The web page is not available" chrome error

 

[HerbertFish]

I can't download the wwe app on my android tablet running 4.2. Lame

 

[Chamber]

It has never worked on Chrome for me. I get the constant loading wheel.

Yeah, doesn't work for me either. It also hasn't worked on Firefox and it's pretty spotty on Safari.

Most reliable thing for me from day one has been my Android phone.

 

[Gigarator]

Have they blocked europeans reaching the Network? As I can't access it at all. I just keep getting the "The web page is not available" chrome error

It's working fine here. (UK)

 

[lovely ladies]

What # on the best announcer list is Mike Adamle at

 

[krae_man]

I watched that a few months ago and decided it's my favorite hardcore match of all time. Everything comes together so much better than you expect it would.

Just rewatched One Night Stand 06 and holy shit that hardcore match with Edge/Foley vs Funk/Dreamer was great. I forgot how much Edge was really "rated R" with the way he pinned Beulah and all.

I hope there's an unedited version of that PPV floating around somewhere. The edits to the DVD were rage inducing. The atmosphere was completely ruined.

 

[strobogo]

What # on the best announcer list is Mike Adamle at

He gets his own list. Eric Bischoff might be the worst announcer of the modern era. Especially during his regretful face authority figure period in 1999 where he would respond to all promos as if they were directed at him, talk over promos, always accentuate and point out the worst qualities in matches/workers, and talk about Hulk Hogan as often as possible. All made worse by the fact that he was the boss and seemed to be going out of his way to make his product look worse.


Also, Earl Hebner is the worst fucking ref. How he became the senior ref in all the big matches for Vince will never cease to blow my mind. He's always in the way, telegraphs everything, misses cues. He's all the worst qualities in a ref rolled into one, yet he was the one Vince used for all the main events for close to 20 years.

 

[Norwegian Rudo]

Also, Earl Hebner is the worst fucking ref. How he became the senior ref in all the big matches for Vince will never cease to blow my mind. He's always in the way, telegraphs everything, misses cues. He's all the worst qualities in a ref rolled into one, yet he was the one Vince used for all the main events for close to 20 years.

Vince owed him for ditching the NWA and coming over so they could do the Hulk/Andre twin refs angle. And then later for screwing Bret.

 

[dubq]

Adam Rose is seriously amazing. I had to do a triple take when I realized who he was.

 

[DMczaf]

...sigh...

 

[strobogo]

They're just having fun out there, DMaggle.

 

[krae_man]

...sigh...

Cue HHH Thumbs down.gif

 

[Anth0ny]

Bootista
Borton
B+ Player
Big Shoe

a McMahon in every corner