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MICHAEL COLE ON BOTH SHOWS, OSPREAY IN WWE, ORANGE VS. JUICE AND MORE

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Who wins a fight between freshly squeezed Orange Cassidy and Juice Robinson?

Tropicana!

Will Ospreay has size, a good athletic build,  can talk, is young, and handsome. Moreover, he can do a highspot style or classic technical wrestling, as his acclaimed matches with Okada has demonstrated. WWE HAS to have Ospreay on their radar right? Have you heard what WWE’s interest in signing him is? Do you personally think he can be a megastar in the WWE? Or, do you think he would be a bigger star in AEW?

I think he could be a star in WWE for sure.  To me it comes down to what he wants out of his career.  AEW offers wrestling, wrestling and more wrestling.  As last Wednesday’s Dynamite showed, the storylines and character build can leave a lot to be desired.  If he wants the chance to be the whole package, great wrestler, great character and in strong storylines, WWE would be the choice I would make if I were him.

Some wrestlers, such as The Bloodline or Dominik, create an increase in viewership regardless of which segment they are placed in the show, be it the beginning, top of the 2nd hour, or the closing segment.  Others, like the Young Bucks, create a dramatic decrease in viewership no matter where they are placed in the show.  What is it about the Bucks specifically, who do have entertaining matches, that makes a large portion of the audience change the channel during their matches?  

All I can do is give you my take on it.  I have no facts to back it up and I won’t act like I do.  I can only tell you why I, as a fan, would turn off their matches if I didn’t have to watch them.  First and foremost, they are just completely unbelievable to me.  Yes, they can do moves and spots and have a lot of talent in that regard, no doubt.  But, they just aren’t believable.  I don’t believe I am watching them fight when they work, it seems like they are performing.  They are small guys that wrestle like they are The Road Warriors.  Their selling is often nonexistent.  When I watch them wrestle, a lot of the times they are visually showing me that I am watching a work.  I can’t get invested in that.  I guess it’s also possible that some people don’t want to watch them because of the drama they have had with CM Punk, but that’s just a theory.

By placing Michael Cole as the lead announcer of both Raw and Smackdown, does that tell us that WWE thinks there is no other good option at present to handle the lead announcing duties for one of their main shows?  Does that also tell us that they were not satisfied with Kevin Patrick in that role?

I think you can definitely make a case for that.  When I listen to Cole on Smackdown now, it almost seems like he is there to do on the job training.  Patrick is the lead most of the time so it comes off to me like Cole is there to give him real time critiques.  They have invested in Patrick and unlike other former Raw announcers, they are giving him more time to improve.  I think that shows that they see something in him.

In response to what you wrote about Dave Meltzer being one-sided in his coverage of the Punk-Elite saga, he tweeted this.  Did you see it?  Notice that rather than take on the points you made, he instead took a cheap shot.  Doesn’t that say it all about him?

Two things stand out to me.  First, the person who tweeted at Dave is duplicitous, at best.  I never said what he claimed I said.  What I said then, and said from the beginning, is that it’s not a one-sided situation.  The first public shot was fired by Hangman Page when he shot on Punk on Dynamite.  That is a fact that no one fair can deny, but that doesn’t fit Dave’s narrative so he won’t address that.  That fact alone means it’s not “All Punk” as Dave claims.  I guess in the many years that the tweeter spent in high school, he/she/it never passed one reading comprehension class. Two, Dave knows what I actually said (I have a direct way to find out what articles he reads on the site) and since he clearly can’t argue the facts, he just acts like, well, the way he acted.  What he should do is be fair and report the whole story and when the side he favors in this childish feud is wrong he should call them out, just like I did at length on the FMB on Saturday where I said Punk was totally out of line for comments towards Page.  There is one thing Dave is actually right about in his tweet, Punk apologized.  It would be a great thing for his seemingly favored side in this to try doing that as well.  Instead of referring Punk to their lawyers, talk to the man.  Try to work things out.  Maybe then they could actually come to a resolution and end this stupidity.  If they can’t come to a truce, at least they can say they tried.  It would also help if reporters didn’t take sides and fan the flames.  Finally, I define success as being happily married to my best friend for almost 37 years, raising a great daughter, who is molecular biologist doing research to try and cure Ovarian Cancer.  At the end of the day, they are life’s true treasures and the gauge by which I want to be judged, certainly not by what Dave has or hasn’t accomplished in the wrestling business and on Twitter.  When you add in that, thanks to all of the great support from the people over the years, I could already be retired if I wanted to and I own homes on both coasts, I don’t have any need to concern myself with Dave’s “success” or any desire to try and emulate it.  

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