JBL says a four-man announce booth WWE once ran on SmackDown was an absolute disaster, and he believes two voices are almost always the right number. This was during the SmackDown Live period around late 2016 into early 2017.
Asked on the latest episode of Something to Wrestle what the ideal commentary setup looks like, JBL said adding bodies works against the broadcast rather than for it. He now co-hosts the show with Conrad Thompson.
“The three-man booth I think can be really hard to work. You got the babyface, you got the heel out there as color commentators. It can be a disaster,” JBL said. “One time we had a four-man booth on SmackDown, and I thought that was just an absolute disaster.”
JBL said a two-person booth gives you the dynamic that actually serves the show, with the color commentator leaning one direction.
“I think heel is probably the best way to lean because that way you can have the play-by-play guy play more of the straight guy,” JBL said.
He said the value of that setup is that the heel can carry an argument the straight man cannot.
“Sometimes what the heel does is preposterous. You introduce a foreign object, you introduce an extra player, and you claim that that didn’t happen, or you claim that there was a reason behind it that doesn’t really make a lot of sense,” JBL said. “The straight guy can’t do that. The heel can do it.”
JBL said the pairing works best when the two can take shots at each other without the broadcast becoming about the two of them, pointing to Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon as the standard.
“Heenan and Monsoon were probably the best in the world at what they did. They’d take shots at each other,” JBL said. “But you can’t ever make it about you against this other guy. You guys are not wrestling, and you guys are the ones that aren’t going to draw the money.”
He added that he does not think a single-announcer broadcast is unworkable, crediting Joey Styles’ run in ECW and older matches he has gone back and watched on YouTube, but said the dynamic of a two-person booth is what he would take every time.
JBL knows the setup from the inside. He moved to the SmackDown commentary desk in 2006 after retiring from full-time in-ring work, and spent the better part of a decade calling WWE television across both brands, which is where the rest of his answer came from.
He also told a story about how the headset traffic worked at the desk, and what happened when it went wrong. Vince McMahon had a direct line to him, as did Kevin Dunn and the producer stationed near the timekeeper. On one occasion, the line ran to the wrong person.
“Vince, one time he told Kerwin, he goes, Kerwin, go to camera seven, and he has me. The wires are crossed. He has me on the headset, but I can’t tell him it’s me because I’m live on commentary,” JBL said.
The Kerwin in question is Kerwin Silfies, WWE’s longtime television director. With no talkback button available, JBL had no way to correct the mistake mid-broadcast, and he said McMahon’s frustration kept building as the instruction went unanswered.
“Of course Kerwin doesn’t do it because Kerwin doesn’t hear him. Vince is talking to me, and so finally goes, ‘Kerwin, goddamn, go to seven. Are you going into business for yourself?’ And of course Kerwin never does it,” JBL said. “Vince gets madder and madder. I’m hearing this man just go nuts.”
JBL said McMahon believed he was being openly defied in front of the production crew.
“Vince thinks Kerwin’s disobeying him in front of everybody, and it was so funny,” JBL said.
He eventually got word to McMahon the only way he could.
“I finally texted and I said, ‘Hey boss, you’re talking to me, not Kerwin,'” JBL said, adding that McMahon thought it was the greatest thing ever once he realised what had happened.
The story doubles as a description of how little room announcers had to communicate outward. JBL said the desk had a cough button for throat clearing or shuffling papers, and a camera trained on the announcers so they could signal the truck by hand, but no dedicated way to speak back during a live broadcast.
