This past week on Impact it became obvious the Jeremy Borash was gone from the company. He was missing from the commentary booth alongside Josh Mathews. Instead Sonjay Dutt tried to fill the shoes of the Impact mainstay. It made me think about the import of good commentary.
The commentation station, the booth or calling the action, it all part of the same thing. It is designed to give the viewer and added dimension to what is going on in the ring. Throughout the years there have been some legendary teams behind the desk; Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan, JR & The King and so forth. Not many can measure up to the greatness of those men. Impact Wrestling’s original duo of Don West and Mike Tenay, at first accompanied by Ed Ferrara, is today sorely missed.
Tenay’s strength was that he was very knowledgeable when it came to wrestling history, few can match him when it comes to such trivia. West, for all his shortcomings, was a firecracker on the mic, getting excited over basic moves. In many ways it was the perfect combination. The somber professor and his crazy sidekick, a Pinky and The Brain style relationship. This started to crack as the writers attempted to make West a heel announcer, eventually relegating him to Shop TNA and being replaced by Taz. The former Tazzmaniac was respected as an announcer, but failed to impress in Impact, making Tenay do all the work. Tenay would also be moved to another position and then silently be phased out, leaving Taz and his new partner Josh Matthews. There was a brief moment when Tod Kennely joined them, but he quickly vanished.
I was personally excited to see Matthews come in. Not being familiar with his work in WWE, I could only assume that a person under the tutelage of JR and other seasoned professionals could do some real good. Over the years though, and with the advent of the GWN app, I have had cause to go back and watch old Impact. Matthews has shown that he is better as an on screen persona. His voice does not alone have the charisma needed to make the viewer interested in the product. His voice is the same no matter if something vile, exciting or uninteresting happens in the ring. With an increasingly disengaged Taz next to him, Matthews would only seem blander. After Taz left the company management would struggle to find a replacement, finally settling on The Pope and then adding Jeremy Borash.
Since the announce team always records their vocals the Wednesday before Impact airs and JB left the promotion the previous Friday, it was only natural that they replaced him. Sonjay Dutt seems to be up to the task. He does not have a ton of experience commentating, but he has that thing that many announcers lack; Knowledge.
Knowledge is the thing that has always been one of the big difference makers. Mike Quackenbush has it. When one watches a Chikara event one can rely on him to call out the right move at the right time and even know the move set of each individual wrestler. It comes from years of being interested in the craft. Colt Cabana, with ROH, is the same. It is what Sonjay possesses as well. It is much more exciting to hear words like Biel thrown out there than Fallaway Slam, or power move. It brings gravitas to the product and gives the viewer a sense of suspension of disbelief.
The rumor was, on some news sites, that Don Callis and Kevin Kelley were coming in to commentate and I would have been quite okay with that. The commentators need to call the action in the ring and not talk about other things. William Regal said on The Art of Wrestling, that if you do interesting things in the ring I will talk about it and then the audience will pay attention. If attention is diverted with chatter about what is up next, or the main even, it might indicate that what is going on in the square circle right now is of no importance.
Impact Wrestling, with its soft relaunch, need to take a good look at their commentary team, and make sure that they do the product justice.
-C. Marry Hultman
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