Michael Cole usually gets heat from fans for not focusing on the action inside the ring while calling the matches. Turns out, the longtime WWE announcer is aware of this criticism but he doesn’t have any problem with it, because he considers himself to be a ‘sports entertainment announcer.’
The veteran commentator explained his point of view during his most recent appearance on The Press Box podcast. He explained that WWE is not a wrestling company. It is mainly an entertainment company and so the style that he utilises is sports entertainment announcing:
“We’re not a wrestling company. WWE is an entertainment company. So the style that I utilize and the style that many people that work for me here in WWE utilize, is what I like to call sports entertainment announcing. A lot of people laugh at me about that. They’ll make jokes about it. But what we do here is much different than what they may do in other companies.”
‘We Just Happen To Use A Wrestling Ring’
Michael Cole gave the example of a 70s TV show called Taxi. He explained that people liked the show because they could connect with the characters in it, not because they were cab drivers in a garage. The same thing is true for WWE, where the wrestling ring is used as a focal point to resolve the conflicts. Though their main focus is on the stories and getting people interested in the characters:
“We just happen to use a wrestling ring as our focal point of where our conflicts are resolved. But in order for our business to be successful, you have to become emotionally invested in the characters and what we are selling. The majority of the people that watch our product, they enjoy wrestling of course, but they also get really into the soap opera style of what we do.”
Cole mentioned how there are other companies that strictly do wrestling. He explained that you are going to call a wrestling match differently than you are going to call a sport entertainment match. In WWE, they focus more on stories. According to him, the WWE commentators are storytellers, more than being the play-by-play guys.
Quotes via WrestlingNews
