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| Great heel wrestler, awful announcer Photo Credit: WWE.com |
The last idea, and the one I'm likely going to do even unconsciously, was to bitch about a show that I willfully watched, because this is the internet and everyone does that. And being that this is a Trey Irby column, any effort I make to actually recap a show will endlessly devolve into how damn awful Dok Hendrix is as a presence. I mean, the guy should know how to play the type of glorious heel that he was in the 1980s and even through a brief time as an announcer in WCW, but he instead adopts this 1990s obnoxious sheen and even commentates the two most noteworthy matches on this show. I hate it all.
Actually, I have something. I didn't like much of this show, so I would say that you should watch the 1-2-3 Kid/Hakushi match, because it's very fun, and watch the ladder match because I suppose that's history. What I want to talk about is a trend the WWF accidentally kicked off in 1995 and featured prominently on this show.
It wasn't a wholly brand new development when Michael Cole took up the role of the heel announcer right around 2010. After all, figures like Bobby Heenan did the heel announcer role for ages. But what Cole brought to it was a brazen abrasiveness to the role. This had mixed results, veering from wildly entertaining promos on television to the type of dismissive banter that makes a viewer wonder why he or she is watching. Yet 1995 WWF did this with two examples, intentionally with Dok Hendrix and unintentionally with Todd Pettengill.
This is not solely the fault of the performers. As mentioned above, Michael Hayes (who portrayed Hendrix) was a fantastic heel figure in the 1980s as one of the Fabulous Freebirds. Even as late as the 1989 Great American Bash, Hayes had the ability to perfectly summarize the tropes of villainy, from hitting one move and running off to do a quick celebration to begging off to be the last combatant in a War Games match, even while insisting he wants to be in the match. This is heel mastery at its finest. So what went wrong?
I can't speak for the man himself, as I have not only very limited knowledge of Hayes' career, but because I do not know Hayes' rationale. I'm not certain if his abrasive and obnoxious run as Dok Hendrix was meant as a carryover of Hayes' heel mannerisms or simply Vince McMahon ignoring history and coaching a new style with his performer. Either way, it sucked. Hendrix was brought out to announce the HBK/Razor Ramon ladder match and the hilarious Diesel/Mabel main event. But he ultimately added nothing to the proceedings. It says a lot when Jerry Lawler, who is similarly an obnoxious announcer, at least has a sort of chemistry with Vince. Lawler would often playfully railroad Vince in a manner that actually led to amusing banter, even if it got into gross "let's make fun of Bertha Faye's weight" territory. (By the way, some things never change.)
I don't know. I guess sometimes a character has it and sometimes they don't. I don't really fully know why I love the dulcet tones of Sean Mooney and hate his replacement Todd Pettengill. I wasn't old enough to see the actual transition, so it isn't a rose-tinted opinion. I've also liked later backstage interviewers like Josh Mathews and Renee Young way more, although that might be bias in the other direction. Maybe there's a smarmy nature from Pettengill that I cannot stand. Or hell, maybe it was just going to always be this bad. I mean, it's Summerslam 1995.