The lost art of announcing in WWE.   

I honestly think the announcing in WWE is pretty much at the lowest point it has been in quite some time. Quality announcing can make a good match "great" and a great match "epic". Sadly, these days, I don't see too much of that from the WWE product. Mostly it has to do to the absence of Jim Ross, due to health issues. I hope that he'll be a part of Wrestlemania this year. Still, we all knew this day was coming, one day, there would be no more JR as an announcer, at least full time. Yet, WWE has no one to fill his shoes.

Yeah, Michael Cole, whose improvement has been minimal over the past fifteen years or however long he has been announcing. And who I am not entirely convinced is not a robot. Todd Grisham has improved ever so slightly, going from horrible to passable, but nothing special. Josh Mathews is fine, but he's just not someone I see being credible enough to move up to the big time. Good for the lesser shows like NXT, and back in the day Velocity and ECW, but not good enough for a RAW or Smackdown. Then on the color commentary side is Jerry Lawler. Who is still fairly good but not as great as he was back in the mid 90s. Then Matt Striker...well let's just say this. When I have to mute the television so I don't feel the desire to punch it out, that's a problem.

The problem is that WWE management wants to hire people to do announcing who look good on camera, no matter how good they are in calling the action in the ring and getting a story across. The announcers should announce. We should not be able to see them. When I think of my favorite announcing teams of all time I think of teams like Jesse Ventura and Gorilla Monsoon. Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, you know people like that. I enjoyed that one RAW where Jesse Ventura and Vince McMahon commentated that battle royal because that was a blast when the announcing was actually good. Plus, it wasn't like Vince could yell in his own headset, which is another problem. Announcers are afraid to go outside the box and improve, because they might upset Vince.

So do you think the announcing in WWE has really taken a dip in quality in recent years? And who are some of your favorite WWE announcing duels of all time?