We Need to Have a Talk about Michael Cole

How can he spew so much crap and not improve himself or learn a lesson? Photo Credit: WWE.com

Once upon a time, WWE had really good announcers. No one would ever confuse Gorilla Monsoon with a lexicon of technical knowledge, but the man not only had a great feel for how to get the stuff in the ring over with emotional impact or that he had a rapport with his fellow announcers, he was a veritable treasure trove of witticisms and chestnuts. He and Bobby Heenan had such a great relationship, but even though it was clear that they were friends, they had to antagonize each other for their jobs. One such phrase that Monsoon loved to bestow on Heenan (and Jesse Ventura) was that he was a "fountain of misinformation." Obviously, it was because they each had their own agendas. Monsoon was the straight man who was supposed to be objective but more often than not sided with the good guys, while Heenan went at all lengths not only to root for the heels, but discredit the faces. It was simply a difference of opinion.

But what happens when one of the announcers currently is a legitimate fountain of misinformation? What happens when one guy in the booth gets things so wrong all the time that he's even corrected by his broadcast partners? And what if that person has been ordained by the narrative as the "Voice of WWE?" Well, I think it means that the company has a huge credibility problem.

Michael Cole comes under fire for a lot of things, but he's generally in the better percentile of wrestling announcers, at least in the mainstream. Honestly, that might say more about the state of wrestling announcers nowadays, but I do think some of the things he does get overblown. However, his constant need for JBL to be his fact-checker is a huge problem. We saw it a couple of weeks ago when he claimed glibly and incorrectly that no one goes to libraries anymore. Last night, he tried to get one over on Zeb Colter by asking about his experience working in a "foreign country." That sovereign nation he was referring to? Puerto Rico. The last time I checked, the island was still a United States commonwealth.

If you're going to be relied upon as being the voice of your company, you need to get your facts right. This isn't a case of a company line's opinion being touted as fact despite its controversy. There is no denying that Puerto Rico is part of the USA. That's like saying two plus two is eleventy-billion. This also isn't the first time JBL has had to correct Cole, nor has Cole been an accurate source of information before the former Bradshaw was there to correct him.

Wrestling has had a problem with perception for a long time. When the guy who talks in nearly every segment comes off as a moron, then what does that do for the people who watch it? If WWE doesn't do anything to correct the perception that they're a dumb show for dumb people, then they deserve the rep they get. However, since they are the largest mainstream wrestling company (and since the other wrestling company is way, way, WAY DUMBER) , they set the tone for other companies, whether they deserve it or not (and companies like the late Chikara and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla certainly don't). I know they don't care about the companies that they think are beneath them because of monetary issues until time comes to raid their rosters, but they should.

See, it costs nothing to present an intelligent product. I assume people who'd flock to the show when the perception was bad will still be there because they're wrestling fans. I'm not saying that more people will flock to wrestling if they think it's smarter, but I am saying that there's less a probability that someone's intelligence would be insulted if the talking heads on the show didn't actively or passively insult the audience's intelligence. Since nothing WWE is doing right now in the short term seems to be spiking their financial and viewership metrics, maybe the answer isn't new feuds or new stars, but a culture shift, a makeover if you will.

The easiest thing they can do right now would be either having a heart to heart with Cole on his flat-out wrong grasp of facts, or they could replace him. There really is no excuse for the lead announcer to be as wrong as Cole is on a regular basis. It was one thing for Gorilla Monsoon to call out Bobby Heenan for being a fountain of misinformation because he disagreed with the way he viewed Hulk Hogan. It's a whole other for Monsoon's replacement to be an actual font of dumbshittery, whose output is insulting to the intelligence of any given viewer at any given moment.