[quote name='007']I don't get the outrage... the IWC has bemoaned the lack of face/heel commetary teams for years, yet are pissed off when it's brought back?[/QUOTE]
I think there's something more to it than that, though. Who are heel commentators supposed to heel; the in-ring product (the wrestlers) or the viewers? I'm a grown-up, so I can totally take it in stride if Michael Cole is digging at me (I'm an "internet fan" insomuch as I know a lot about the gossip-y goings on - e.g., I know Kaz played Suicide and know who Danielson is going into NXT, so I guess that satisfies that). I know it's a product, I know what suspension of disbelief is.
But Cole seemed to conflate mocking Danielson with mocking the viewership, and I can somewhat see how it would turn people off. Yes, that's quite silly - if they're heeling fans, they need to give them the payoff in the future, either in a big victory for Danielson (whether winning NXT or something else that's given a story arc and isn't, say, a spontaneous match with Sheamus where he gets a rollup pin).
I seem to recall Jake Roberts - no, it wasn't him, I'm confusing this for what he said in "Beyond the Mat" about identifying one fan and just working them with your eyes (strangely, he makes it sound more sensible and less perverted). Whoever it was, it was a dude who was a heel in his career mostly. They said that when you work the crowd you can't isolate individuals, you have to paint them all with a broad brush (e.g., Miz's easy swipe at the Indy crowd on Monday by digging at the Colts' Super Bowl loss). But if you single out a fan, the rest of the crowd is less interested, and that fan, depending on what a jerk you are, won't come back the next time you're in town.
Rick Rude did that well. He would lambast the crowd at large ("Cincinnati Sweathogs"), and never to my knowledge singled out individuals ("hey, you - yeah, you, fatty arbuckle, take a look at what a real man looks like!"). And it worked for him. So when you heel a crowd there has to be enough substance for people to get pissed off about it, but not feel slighted as an individual. Think about Chris Rock's bit from a few years back when he was talking about the sexual content of r&b songs (awwwww skeet skeet skeet skeet mother
er!) and how people at clubs would dance to it, distanced from the subject matter (he ain't talkin' bout me!). Same idea.
So Cole needs to be careful. I think he doesn't need to draw attention to the internet fans itself. They live vicariously through Punk's success, through Danielson's entree to WWE, through Colt Cabana's brutal misuse, etc. If he plays the role of heel announcer, he'll be effective enough panning the people doing the work in the ring. And that, as an announcer, is what he ought to be doing in the first place.
I'm not sure how I could reconcile his Raw and NXT personae thought. Play-by-play to heel just doesn't work with me. Seems contrived.
k
