The "Voice" of the WWF
 

Since the late 90s, it is almost undisputable that Jim Ross has been the "voice of the WWF/E", even though Michael Cole will eventually replace him in this role down the line. But he currently hosts the flagship show, announces the most important matches, and is the "main event" man in the booth.

Back in the 80s and early 90s, however, you had two concurrent play-by-play guys... Gorilla Monsoon and Vince McMahon, both regularly hosting PPVs without the other (although Gorilla called a lot more than McMahon) and both hosting flagship broadcasts, until the advent of Monday Night Raw. So which would you consider the "Voice of the WWF" in the 80s and 90s? Gorilla, or Vince?

I gotta go with Monsoon. He just seemed more important than Vince even though I knew the opposite was true.

For me, the Gorilla was the voice of WWF, and one of the best ever, even though he seems to get knocked a lot and seems to be regarded by many as an awful commentator. I thought he was tremendous.

Plus they alternated Vince, Ventura, and Hayes there for a while, Monsoon was the constant.

Gorilla, but only with Bobby. No one can replace that team!

Gorilla and Bobby, in my view, the greatest announce team of all time. But Gorilla was always great as the straight man to a humourous heel co-host, and his teams with Jesse Ventura and Johnny Polo were awesome too.

80's/Early 90's -Gorilla
Mid 90's -Vince
Late 90's-Present - J.R

:y:

I can't believe Gorilla died so young, only 62 yrs old. He never seemed to get any older either, until his shocking final appearance at WrestleMania XV when he looked like a different person altogether.

I think Cole and Tazz were a fairly good team. Also, while I like JBL, he and Micheal Cole don't mesh as well. I think JBL and the Coach would do well together.

Gorilla and Heenan were the best period. I use to love when Heenan would go off on a rant and Gorilla would say "will you stop", great.

i liked WM6 gorilla and ventura. the whole PPV, ventura is harassing gorilla about how many chili dogs he has eaten during the show.

There was quite a few guys I liked on color besides Heenan. I also liked Perfect, Ventura, and Piper was ok

What about Macho Man???

Nah I was kiddin...Perfect was good....actually he was PERFECT!! (as a wrestler/play-by-play guy)

JBL and Coach, while both great, wouldn't make a good team. It's two strong heel personalities in commentary roles. In other words, it's 2 color commentators. You need a grounded, face, play by play commentator to offset the personality of the outspoken, sometimes screwy color guy.
JBL and Coach are both talented as color commenators, but without a JR or Cole type to compliment them it would suck.

Monsoon and Ventura is the greatest announce team ever

Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan were the best in their day.
J.R. and "The King" best now, followed by Joey Styles and Tazz, Cole and JBL.

Don West and Mike Tenay are the worst ever,

Don West and Mike Tenay suck because it's just 2 play by play guys.

The team lacks any personality or friction. It's boring as hell and lacks any personality and chemistry. Only thing that sets Don West apart from Tenay is his annoying screaming, which is far from making him entertaining, charismatic, or colorful
They need a comedic, heelish color commentator in there asap and not just the guy from Home Shopping Network who used to rant and rave about how good of a deal it was to buy a baseball card set.

Watch the Royal Rumble '91. That's enough right there to say that Monsoon and Heenan <strike>were</strike> are the best.

You mean 1992, and the main event (Rumble match) is the greatest commentary performance in wrestling history. A work of art.

The match is tremendous also. Anybody reading this who has never seen it... if there is but ONE match you should ever go back and watch from the history of the WWF, this should definitely be a consideration. This, or Hart vs Perfect 1991.

No, '91. You hear Bobby complain about how Ric Flair drew number three, and how later on Monsoon tells The Brain to give up because Flair isn't going to win it. It was for the WWF title that year.
Refresh my memory- what happenedin '92?

That was 1992 my friend.

Hogan won in 1991. I wanna say he eliminated Earthquake last too.

I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell everyone who I work with...

"If I'm wrong, it's not the first time, and I doubt it'll be the last."
When I'm sober I'll look it up.

Actually, I think what you're referring to happened in 1992. :p

What I've learnt from this thread is that Jeritron knows his shit on the topic of professional wrestling commentary.

Jeritron, can I ask you how you would arrange the teams for RAW, SmackDown!, ECW, Heat and PPV?

Yeah, '92 like I said. 1991 Rumble had Gorilla and Roddy Piper on the mic, and yes, Hogan did eliminate Earthquake to win it.

By the way, I know you were asking Jeritron, but I would go with this arrangement.... (if I had free reign, and contracts did not come into the equation, but only using guys who are possibilities eg. Heenan cannot commentate due to his voice so he's out)

RAW: Michael Cole, Raven
SmackDown: Joey Styles, Roddy Piper
ECW: Todd Grisham, Michael Hayes
Heat: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
PPV: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura (calling all three brands, sort of a "super" announce team)

Hmmm... maybe replace Grisham with Tony Schiavone. He was over the top, but he wasn't bad.

Ooooh, or maybe bring back Todd "Super Shill" Pettengill.... nah, he was a good presenter, but a crap commentator. Stratch that.

Sean Mooney.

He sucks, but his name hasn't been mentioned so far, so there you go.

As to the topic, when I was a kid watching wrestling in the early 90s, I always guessed that Monsoon was actually an important guy within the company, and that Vince was some clown, like a newscaster who had been a huge wrestling fan and had gotten the WWF to hire him, and were paying him in merchandise. You would have NEVER convinced me that that little dork in the red bow tie OWNED the company. Even when my brother told me that he was the owner, I was only willing to concede that he had probably become a part-owner over the years. I only really accepted it in after the Mr. McMahon character took off.
Monsoon to me was the real voice of the company during the 80s/90s. As far as non-heel guys on the mic went, Vince seemed like a company shill, but Monsoon seemed to be the guy "in the know." As someone who had never been a huge fan of Hogan, for me Monsoon was the only guy who could sell him to me as "immortal." In fact, to this day Gorilla was the only face commentator who ever had a "what he says is the goods" aura for me.

Gorilla and Ventura were an excellent team. Then Gorilla and Bobby were arguably even better.

Heenan brought out a better dynamic in Monsoon. With Jessie Gorilla had a closer team dynamic to JR and Lawler as two guys who generally differed in opinion but were okay on each other; with Heenan you had a golden comedy duo with a sympathetic straight man forced to endure an antagonistic buffoon.

Gorilla and Heenan were definitely the best team. Yeah, Gorilla was clearly the voice of the WWF pre RAW

Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon were a pretty sick team at one point.

Heenan was a good color man period. The 98 Heenan/Schivoni team was gold in WCW.

And I'm glad I'm not the only guy who's high on bringing Tony back. He has that JR style about him, or did, when he was in WCW, and would fit in nicely, but now I'm starting to think that maybe Cole doing RAW, Vince's favorite brand, wouldn't be too bad in the interm. Still seems as though SD wouldn't be the same without that "dorky" voice of his since he's been on that show so long. Joey is pure ECW, and I don't think anyone would ever be able to associate another voice with ECW other than him. Thus, unless ECW is canned, then Joey has to stay there. Still, too, Todd Grisham's commentary made Vince blow his load that one night, giving me the impression that he could also be an option.

Seems to me this is going to be a hard choice. Cole STILL has his haters that will be burning down Stamford if he got onto RAW, everyone KNOWS how Schivoni was forced to call the matches and hype the shows, and while Grisham is an excellent PBP guy, not many have been able to see what he can do as anything more than Heat or as a ring announcer, not to mention that no one knows if any of them would even TAKE the job yet.

Then again, they could ask that UFC guy again and throw some more money to him, or get some brand new face to do PBP.

By the way, forgot to say, Gorilla was the main voice in the 80s and early 90s, but when I started to really understand and get into it when I was younger, it was Vince and the King (with the King regularly saying things about Vince's "toupee").

Sorry, I forgot to be in the context of the thread. So sue me, :shifty:.

The King was so fucking good during that era...back when he was an asshole.

lol Remember when Lawler entered the Royal Rumble that he was commentating?

Lawler is a great colour commentator. Well, he was until they made him a face and he lost his edge and humour.