We have wildly different opinions on this then. My favorite part of Ricaboni is the part where Willow comes out, and every week he would do a different rap for her entrance. And every rap would include lines about pop culture, or recent events, or even storyline fueds that were current. It had a real “superbowl shuffle” kind of vibe to it, except modernized. I really liked that.

With JR, maybe I’M out of touch, but I really agree with what a lot of what he says. I DO think these guys should slow it down. Scott Hall said that Curt Henning gave him some advice when he first became Razor. Henning said “Don’t do all your shit at once. Make every movement mean something. No wasted movement. Then when you DO a cool special thing, you can be sure the cameras absolutely will capture it, and commentary will make you look like a million bucks.”

Thats why Razor had this cool swagger to him. He took his time getting to the ring. He made his punches different. Just picture in your head what an AWA Scott Hall punch looks like…can’t do it, can you? Nothing unique or special about just the punch. But Razor Ramone, had a distinct way he would punch. So much so that when Scott Hall went to WCW in 1996, WWF tried suing WCW for gimmick infringement. With the idea that part of the lawsuit specifically mentioned the mannerisms Scott Hall was doing was still very “Razor Ramone”. Now they mentioned things like the distinct walk, the accient, the attire, but also mentioned the punches. The punches in WWFs mind were part of the character, because Scott Hall didn’t do that anywhere else before he was Razor.

Hall would later say “That was all just part of the slowing things down. I punched that way because it would make the focus on me. That was part of what Henning taught me.”

And that’s the kind of thing JR has been calling for, for years. Slowing down the pace, in order to tell a story within the match. Bret Hart NEVER dove from inside the ring to over the top rope, and doing a flip. He would on occasion, very very rarely, dive through the middle ropes in big matches. Where it mattered. Now these days you got 6 dives in a row every match. And it’s like “ok, cool…you just did 6 dives in a row, everybody got a dive in, but what did it accomplish?” And nobody remembers it. Yet, years later everybody talks about how cool the Shawn Micheals/Undertaker matches were at wrestlemania. And how crazy it was that Undertaker dove over the top rope. He CAN do it, but he doesn’t. He slows things down, so that when he does do the thing, it matters.

But I wouldn’t have JR as the main play by play. I understand his ailments, and I understand he can’t go at that level these days. It’s like asking Mohommad Ali to get into a boxing match. Greatest of all time, but definately not able to do it today.

Instead, I see him more putting emotion into the matches. Like “Oh, look at Swerve Strictland taking advantage of Prince Nana’s distraction! This isn’t right! Hey ref! Pay attention to the damn match!”

And also offering incite to the matches. Something like “Shane Strictland is not somebody to mess with. Here’s a guy who spent part of his life homeless in Cleveland Ohio, living off of bread and peanut butter, and still made the local indy shows. He knows what it’s like to suffer. He’s got that anger inside of him! And that makes him a very dangerous individual.”

I see JR as the link between the new viewer, and getting invested in the ring before the bell even sounds. While retaining the legitimacy of knowing what he’s talking about with anyone who knows anything about wrestling, or even ever casually watched it 20 years ago.

Taz…well, he’s Taz. Not my favorite, but he doesn’t detract from the show, so may as well throw him on. Especially since he already has chemistry with JR. They called Smackdown together for a few years.