The Future Of WWE's Announce Teams?, Morrison's Face Turn
Partial Source: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter (F4WOnline.com)
The WWE tapings at Madison Square Garden last week were sold out with just over 12,000 paid and $500,000 coming in. The morale at the show was stronger than usual as SmackDown doesn't sell out a lot of big arenas.
As noted earlier, WWE is pushing John Morrison as a face on the SmackDown brand. Everyone in WWE realizes these days that with so many of their top Superstars getting older and stale, that it's very important that they start creating new stars.
There has been lots of talk about the future of announcing in WWE. Many feel that fans see Jim Ross (57) and Jerry "The King" Lawler (who turns 60 soon) as "stars" as opposed to other announcers like Michael Cole, Todd Grisham, Josh Mathews and Matt Striker. According to sources, Vince McMahon reportedly wants all announcers to be colorless in the idea that they aren't the stars of the show and that the wrestlers are. This is hard to put over now in his eyes since Ross and Lawler will always be looked at as stars and were recently inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Many are interested to see the transition the company will take with the announcers once Ross and Lawler finish up with the company, although that doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. Lets hope J.R sticks around for quite some time as that's obviously a major loss.
I want to quickly apologize for the lack of news yesterday (Saturday) here on the site. I went out to a free Third Eye Blind concert here in Albany, NY yesterday. This is the first day I've taken off in what seems like several years. It's good to take a day or two off every now and then! Thanks for your continued support of the website! We can't thank you enough. Also, Happy Mothers Day to all you moms out there. Make sure to call your moms and wish them a happy Mothers Day!!
