Joey Styles sucked

[garfieldsnose 0]

I'm watching old ECW episodes, and man does Joey Styles suck. The only redeeming quality he has that most of the IWC loved was he'd actually call PBP instead of "telling a story." The way he had to call every wrestler by their nickname before their wrestling name reeks of Tenay/West doing the same thing in TNA. "Steve Corino's Rookie Monster Rhino!" has been said about six times in one episode. The Human Suplex Machine Taz! The Most Homocidal, Genicidal, Suicidal maniac in all of professional wrestling Sabu! He does it ALL the time. This is no different than what other commentators have done, so why does he get a pass? Also, it's a hurricanrana, not a hoodincanrana.

 

 

[Chazz 0]

I don't know if I'd say he sucked, but he was probably overrated looking back. I think he got "a pass" because he worked for hip, cool, renegade ECW, and like you pointed out, actually called the matches in the ring.(Something both WWF and WCW announcers rarely did during this time period.)

[garfieldsnose 0]

What's sad about it is that when you look back at the WWF and WCW announcers, they sucked more. That's been pointed out various times since, but I've never seen anyone shit on Styles, but he sucked just like all of them. I can't decide if a color guy made him better or worse.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah...I remember every time I would show an ECW tape to one of my non-smark friends in the mid '90s, they'd be like "This is cool, but that announcer is annoying."

[SamoaRowe 0]

What's wrong with a commentator trying to help get over a wrestler's nickname/gimmick/character by saying it often so the home viewers remember it? Using nicknames isn't Don West's problem (nor was it ever Joey's), it's the fact that he and Tenay never shut the hell up and let some moments speak for themselves.

[ANKLELOCK 0]

yeah it was always kinda the elephant in the room when vince was getting on styles about calling too many moves that vince was....you know....right.

People have eyes. They can see what moves are happening, the names really don't matter except to dweebs who probably already know them. Why they're doing the moves and the motivations of the characters in general ie: the "story" is much more important. Styles always sucked. Still probably more sufferable than Cole, who is awful for completely different reasons.

[cabbageboy 0]

Ironically Styles' first night in WWE he called the HHH/Flair cage match and put that one over quite well in terms of the action and storyline.

 

Styles is one of those "you either love him or hate him" announcers. His style was certainly unique though and worked in ECW. Take him out of that milieu and it's an annoying bunch of ranting.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

I'm not a huge fan of Styles as a solo announcer but put Cyrus w/ him, and that is one mighty fine commentating duo.

[Mos_Def 0]

I think this thread is bullshit. Since when did calling moves become some kind of detriment? Calling moves is good because, if for no other reason, it allows casual fans to follow the action, learn the names of moves and feel a little more knowledgeable.

 

Joey was really good. He was funny, charismatic, knew his shit, helped sell angles and sounded somewhat professional. Pretty much every indy that has had tv over the past decade or so has sounded so amateurish in the broadcasting area. I dont see how anybody could diss him.

 

Dont compare him to Cole. Cole is a fucking nerd. He talks like he has never gotten in a fight in his life, nor a piece of pussy. Joey at least had a little swagger and edge.

[Jingus 0]

-Yeah, Joey used the nicknames a lot. Which, uh, pretty much every announcer in recent history have all done.

 

-Yeah, Joey called a lot of moves. But it's not like he was announcing a radio version of what we saw in the ring. Part of his reason for doing that was that the primary announcers at both WWF and WCW didn't ever call a lot of those moves. How many times did we hear various wacky offense get called either "Whattamaneuver!" or "Sidewalk slam!"? ECW's entire gimmick was that they were different from the competition, and one of those differences was that their commentator actually knew what the names of the holds were.

 

-And besides, it's not like all he did was just do nothing but call the moves all night long. Joey was really damned good at getting over the psychology of the matches, or sometimes even just inventing it when the brawling and highspots didn't have much inherent meaning. Part of the reason he used those nicknames was because they were trying to cement the characters of the ECW wrestlers. In this company, a guy's gimmick and his wrestling style were closely linked. Unlike, well, pretty much all the other companies at the time: why did a Nascar driver like Sparky Plugg have the best dropkick in the company? In ECW, even guys who had similar styles would have different character motivations behind those styles. Tommy Dreamer brawled because the fans loved it and he wanted their approval; Sabu brawled because he was crazy like his uncle and liked to hurt people; Terry Funk brawled in a desperate attempt to keep up with the youngsters and stay relevant; Raven brawled because he was a bully who took pleasure out of hurting helpless foes; the New Jack brawled because he was a street thug straight from the hood; Sandman brawled just because he was so fuckin' drunk. Joey Styles was instrumental at getting across the motivation behind these zany gimmicks, at explaining why these guys were acting the way they were.

 

-Also, speaking in my limited experience as an announcer, calling an entire broadcast solo without a color commentator is really hard. I literally can't think of another announcer who could've done it as well as Joey, without going back to the Lance Russells of yesteryear. Styles had great rhythym and timing; he knew when to scream and when to play it straight, when to verbally illustrate the action and when to just shut up and let the product speak for itself.

 

-There seems to be a whole lot of sentiment in here about a whole lot of announcers sucking. So, you say Styles was bad, but all the other announcers were bad too. Bitch about Tenay, bitch about Cole, bitch about JR, bitch about Lawler, etcetera. Um, did you like anyone's commentary, ever? If you think that all the major wrestling announcers have all sucked, it suggests that the problem is not with the announcers, but with the guy hearing them.

[garfieldsnose 0]

I don't take wrestling seriously, so I'm not going to bitch about much. I never really cared about the commentating, other than a "wow, annoying" type of approach. The fact is I'm watching the entire ECW on TNN run and I had a computer in my hands so I decided to make a thread. It's not like I went out of my way to talk about how much wrestling announcers suck, and I don't complain about it 98% of the time.

 

The casual audience could give a fuck about Tommy Dreamer wanting the fans approval, Sabu being crazy because of his uncle, Terry Funk being old, etc. Why would this matter to the casual fan? It never grew on them. That's not Joey's fault. I didn't mean he sucked on those terms, I meant he was as annoying as the other commentators of which people complain about. My whole point was you can pick apart reasons why the announcers suck in vague terms, but Styles was no better than any other commentator at that point. But I never saw anyone give him any shit because he was "cool." Jim Ross is great, but he can be annoying. I've enjoyed a lot of commentators over the years, and when I said the other announcers sucked, I should have been more specific. Schiavone, Lawler, and Tenay were among the worst. I should have said "with the exception of a few" which would have made my point clearer.

 

And you're a little biased so I can understand, but it isn't blasphemous to hate on Joey.

[garfieldsnose 0]

I think this thread is bullshit. Since when did calling moves become some kind of detriment? Calling moves is good because, if for no other reason, it allows casual fans to follow the action, learn the names of moves and feel a little more knowledgeable.

 

Joey was really good. He was funny, charismatic, knew his shit, helped sell angles and sounded somewhat professional. Pretty much every indy that has had tv over the past decade or so has sounded so amateurish in the broadcasting area. I dont see how anybody could diss him.

 

Dont compare him to Cole. Cole is a fucking nerd. He talks like he has never gotten in a fight in his life, nor a piece of pussy. Joey at least had a little swagger and edge.

 

ECW wasn't an "indy promotion." And in my experience, casual fans care more about why these guys are fighting each other and what the story behind it is. They could care less about the moves. I'm not saying it was a horrible thing for Joey to do, but looking back, I understand NOW why Vince wants commentators to sell the storyline instead of the moves in the ring, because it makes casual fans more apt to pay attention to why something is happening.

 

EDIT: Let me clarify why I said ECW wasn't an indy promotion because I know people will disagree. I don't think ECW was such an indy promotion that you can compare other indy announcers to Joey. Joey was great for a niche fan base, and he always hyped up and never seemed bored or anything. I think the proper comparison would be to WCW and WWF/E commentators, not other indy ones. In comparison to WWE and WCW, it could have been labeled an indy promotion, but I don't think you give Joey enough credit if you compare him to really, really, really outright bad announcers.

[Mos_Def 0]

ECW was most certainly an Indy promotion from 94-99 by anyone's definition. His presence and skill made ECW come across bigger than it was. That was my point.

 

I think selling storylines and calling actual names of moves dont have to be sacrificed one for the other. You can do both. Explaining a name of a hold or move adds credibility and is certainly better than "what a move"!!. I mean, shit, it works for the UFC. I think to criticize him for calling moves is just criticizing for the sake of criticizing.

 

Joey was great, IMO. I'd put him up there with Solie and J.R for sure. He was a big cog in what made the ECW machine so good at the time for reasons I listed in an earlier post.

[garfieldsnose 0]

No way does Joey come close to Solie and JR. I may have criticized him for the sake of criticizing since nobody really has (and let's face it, he deserves criticism like any other commentator), but he really should not be held in the same vein as Solie and JR. Hell, the only reason I disliked Solie was how monotonous he was. Sure, he treated it as legitimate, but I like some excitement once in a while.

[Mos_Def 0]

To each his own. I think Joey definitely ranks with the greats, because they all had their good points and bad.

 

He was an identifiable, signature talent that emerged at a critical point in the industry. I dont think we have seen a new announcer that has come along since that has been close. Yeah, to me he was a flashier, 90s version of Solie and Russel; but to me JR was the best. He married so many different eras and nobody could call a bigger match with more authority and communicate the emotion behind it.

[garfieldsnose 0]

Indeed, to each his own. You make great points about how you like him, but looking back, I think I just liked him to like him since ECW was "cool." Some of it just doesn't hold up to me now.

[foleyfanforever88 0]

I might hate Joey Styles as much as I hate Michael Cole, but I've only really heard his WWE work.

[Jingus 0]

Yeah, completely different guy. He was at his worst when stuck with the nightmare combo of Lawler and Coach, but even his ECW run was unmemorable. Shows you how much Working WWE Style can zap the originality of a guy who's used to doing it differently.

[The Truthiness 0]

He was awesome from 1996-1997, but then he went downhill.

[bob_barron 0]

I really enjoyed Styles and King as a two-man team, they worked really well together at Taboo Tuesday. Styles, King and Coach was a trainwreck though.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Styles / Lawler / Coach / Tazz / Cole was a hell of a combination for the Survivor Series 2005 main event. From what I gather Vince enjoys it when announcers rip into each other on the air, so we got Michael Cole bitching about how the Raw announcers suck at telling a story. It was funny.

 

I sometimes would get annoyed at Joey bashing WWE for no reason on his ECW commentary (this was when I bought one of those Pioneer ECW VHS cassettes from Wal-Mart in 2000 or so) and thought he was overrated, but looking back I'm fine with his work.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

It was also pretty silly how in the earlier days of ECW, he'd say stuff like "And yeah, you know the WWF's Dead Man would never want to take on the Sandman!" and junk like that.

[NoCalMike 0]

Well keep in mind two, most ECW's matches were faster paced and built for a different audience then WWF/WCW. If Style's tried to "tell a story" he would be ignoring the action going on in the ring.

 

I don't understand the "all Styles did was call wrestling moves" rant anyway, because it's just not true. I think Styles was different in that he waited for the appropriate times to sell angles & stories, rather then just blabber on the entire match about other things.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I didn't mind Styles calling the moves, I hated how he would make up finishing move names basically on the fly, and pretend like they'd always been called that.