– In a facinating interview on WWE.com, Joey Styles reacted today to the announcement that Jim Ross will be calling RAW matches at Wrestlemania (WWE.com promises a reaction from JR later tonight). Some excerpts:
My initial response when I was told on Monday when I arrived at the arena in Omaha was disappointment. That lasted about 30 minutes. I was told in person and I do appreciate that. Probably 30 minutes after that, my ego took over and I felt angry for about an hour. And then after real introspection, I realized I’m not where they need me to be in terms of what the position is. And I think what readers of WWE.com and fans watching at home don’t understand is what the position is: WWE doesn’t have play-by-play men. They may call it a play-by-play man, but what that position really is, is a “lead storyteller.” It’s a completely different animal than what I was trying to do.
What I’m thankful for is that Jim has agreed to come in and in his words, “pass the torch,” so that I can learn to do what he does, hopefully, as well as he does, between him coaching me and me working as hard as I possibly can. I can tell you that in preparing for RAW this past Monday, I spent five hours with J.R. going over notes and how to set the premise of each match and the story of each segment and how it would lead into WrestleMania. And I learned more in five hours with Jim Ross than I have in my first five months here at WWE. And it was amazing.
There have been times where I know Vince was extremely frustrated with what I was doing because he was expressing that frustration afterward. And despite what people may have read everywhere, he was never nasty with me or condescending or screaming or yelling. He was always very professional with me. But I could tell Kevin Dunn (Executive Producer) was frustrated because he couldn’t really show me how to build that bridge to storytelling and I didn’t know on my own how to do it. So, I don’t know how often J.R. is going to be available actually at the RAW events. And again some fans  the Internet fans  a lot of them think they know what “producing the announcers” means; they think it means feeding us every line, and that’s not the case. What a good producer does â€â€Âand I thought J.R. did a wonderful job last night  probably the best job I’ve ever seen in someone producing me in terms of storytelling. He may have only given me five lines in a five-segment match.
I never understood why WWE worked so hard to not hire wrestling announcers and now I do. WWE announcers are storytellers and professional announcers need to be taught storytelling. The plus to hiring a professional wrestling announcer is we already have a passion for wrestling and we will learn the storytelling because there is nothing else in the world we’d rather do. I feel like I need to be de-programmed. When I sit at ringside it’s hard to not call every move. I feel like an addict getting the shakes with an uncontrollable urge to call the moves.
I would actually like to come in and do lead announcing on HEAT every week with Coach and Grisham, who are currently the announcers, as color men for me, so I can continually practice the storyline premise of each match  even if we have to make up a story for each one of those matches because there’s not always a story for the HEAT match, and practice the give-and-take.
– Also on WWE.com is a story on former WWE Champion Chris Jericho’s starring theatre role, the Mick Foley “Rated H for Hardcore” video segment, the Cena and HHH training video segments and more.
– Former WWE wrestler and Tough Enough 4 Champion Daniel Puder has said, in a recent interview that he regrets not breaking Kurt Angle’s arm, feeling that it would have forced WWE to push him and opened their eyes to what he could do.
– If you missed them, you can see the first two episodes of Surreal Life (with Maven) today at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. on VH-1 and the first two episodes of Hogan Knows Best at 7 and 7:30 p.m. (Credit: WrestlingObserver.com)
– A reminder: Wrestlemania starts at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday on Pay Per View (4 p.m. PT). WWE.com will then have a post-game show including interviews. (Credit: WWE.com and PWInsider.com)
