Cormier did a great job

[peanut]

Cormier is the right choice for commentator at the NCAA championships.

He’s comfortable on the mic. He’s a relatively big name. He understands people who do not follow wrestling. He’s funny. And for casual fans (as well as plenty of wrestling fans) he’s a good story teller and entertaining.

The NCAA championships are a time to showcase the sport to a wider audience, and technical commentary is not the right choice. Cormier is. 

Edited March 24 by peanut

[Scouts Honor]

agree. 

some guy on twitter said that he announces like he is at a bar with JB

i think thats why it's good.

think about John Madden in the NFL. 

it's near the same.

should DC know the rules a bit better, probably.

[forkemaz]

2 hours ago, peanut said:

Cormier is the right choice for commentator at the NCAA championships.

He’s comfortable on the mic. He’s a relatively big name. He understands people who do not follow wrestling. He’s funny. And for casual fans (as well as plenty of wrestling fans) he’s a good story teller and entertaining.

The NCAA championships are a time to showcase the sport to a wider audience, and technical commentary is not the right choice. Cormier is. 

I Hate to tell you but he went on social media and said he's not coming back and that the rules or way the tournament was ran (can't remember which) suck basically.

Edited March 24 by forkemaz

[forkemaz]

I just double checked and he was very vague. Stating the tournament is run the same as it always has and wrestling hasn't changed since the 40s. Said someone told him they would rather claw their eyes out than watch.

 

It's a garbage take. Love DC but people watch golf, they watch swim, thrre was a period where bowling was on fire. And unless he can get specific he has said nothing helpful.

[Elevator]

He was really bad, but got better for the finals.  His problem is he says whatever he thinks (much of which is idiotic) and babbles on endlessly about topics other than the match or matches going on. 

[PortaJohn]

2 hours ago, Scouts Honor said:

some guy on twitter said that he announces like he is at a bar with JB

That was Lehigh's very own Mason Beckman

[wrestle87]

One of the keys to good commentary is answering questions that somebody in the home audience likely asked for those situations, and otherwise, keeping your mouth shut to not distract from the action.  The commentary for the whole weekend was trash because these guys didn't know when to shutup.  They distracted from the wrestling so much with their incessant blabbering.  I'm talking both about the DC JB team and the Sparks Robles team. I do not overly enjoy Shane Sparks, the dude has a very energetically monotone voice and all he and Robles talked about all tournament was "the coffee grinder."  Sounded like two 11 year olds by the end of the tournament.

That said, as much as I tire of Sparks shtick, I tried a few different times to listen to the DC JB feed, and was back to the matcast with sparks and robles within 15 seconds each time.  

DC was potentially good for bringing eyeballs to the tournament, but no person on earth can say he did a good job commentating.  Because he didn't commentate.  He spent half the time making oblique jokes with burrows about his weight, and then trying not to take offense when jordan obliquely called him fat.

He and JB were a very bad combo, but nobody has ever been interested in hearing JB talk at length.  He's just not that type of dude.  So people came into this tournament expecting DC to carry the combination...and he didn't do that.  I don't know who the 3rd guy was in there, but there were a few instances where DC and JB just went off on some joking tangent, sounding like children, and the 3rd guy on the mic came out of nowhere with actual factual interesting commentary.  I died laughing, but kind of out of sad laughter.  

CAN dc be a great commentator? Yes.  He does it very regularly for the UFC.  But that is an environment he spends far more time in, and he has Rogan and Jon Anik in there who actually provide all the structured discussion, and DC just chimes in with the athlete perpsective of "yeah, that sh*t sucks!"  or "Dang...what a punch."

He's there to add a bit of joviality and laughter to the broadcast, but he is not the type of personality to carry an entire broadcast on his own.  If you guide him and give him prompts to start peeling back his experience, he is fascinating to listen to, he has great stories to tell about his early days wrestling and all the things he's seen. 

But he's not a douche, so he doesn't talk about his own stories all the time.  He actually understands how things work interpersonally, and he is (typically) very conscious of keeping it about the competitors rather than him.  This was probably his biggest failing during the tournament, he just talked about himself in half sentences.  

I think DC is catching all the heat bc the world (rightfully so) had very low expectations for JB behind the mic.  They were a tough combination and DC probably shouldn't have showed up sounding drunk, but but DC is taking the heat for the whole team's underwhelming performance, which is a bit unfair to him.  He was mis-evaluated by the network, and put in a bad spot.  

[billyhoyle]

23 minutes ago, forkemaz said:

I just double checked and he was very vague. Stating the tournament is run the same as it always has and wrestling hasn't changed since the 40s. Said someone told him they would rather claw their eyes out than watch.

 

It's a garbage take. Love DC but people watch golf, they watch swim, thrre was a period where bowling was on fire. And unless he can get specific he has said nothing helpful.

This was my takeaway from his tweets.  Very important people at ESPN asked him to do the announcing as a favor to them. Then a bunch of people complained about the great job he did because they are used to everything being the same since the 40s, and therefore he isn't going to announce NCAAs again.  And so the fans will just have to miss out on how he revolutionized NCAA wrestling announcing by talking about MMA half the time. Because UFC announcing pays well, he will continue to do that. 

Edited March 24 by billyhoyle

[ionel]

DC & JB so much better than Gibbons, Johnson, Sparks combos.  

[flyingcement]

At times he got his facts messed up, but he has way more charisma and ease of socializing which makes for a more comfortable watch for me.  listening to guys who sound stiff makes me uncomfortable and anxious

[boconnell]

I liked him.  

I find it hilarious that people can be so definitive about what good commentating is.  Like it's not something that's largely subjective and personal taste doesn't play into it.  I like it, but it's easy for me to accept other people hate it.  Just like food.  Different people love different things.  But with DC we get a bunch of people telling the whole board that he was the worst and nobody could enjoy him.  

[BAC]

JB is great. DC is a train wreck. Totally unprepared to talk about the wrestlers, uneducated on the rules, lots of uninformed takes, and overall treating NCAA as little more than an MMA springboard rather than an end in itself. 
 

Hard pass. 

[Scouts Honor]

36 minutes ago, ionel said:

DC & JB so much better than Gibbons, Johnson, Sparks combos.  

true.

 

[Hammerlock3]

i thought he was great because he alluded a lot to the grossness of the portal. Also arguments with JB were interesting.

[BIGTENFANBOY]

1 hour ago, Elevator said:

He was really bad, but got better for the finals.  His problem is he says whatever he thinks (much of which is idiotic) and babbles on endlessly about topics other than the match or matches going on. 

Funny, i found him saying what he actually thinks great! Nice to hear actual thoughts even if i disagree with certain points he makes.

[Idaho]

Dana White - JB and Sparks. 

[Voice of the Quakers]

I’ve worked in media for 30 years. I’ll keep my comments just to the finals, because I watched Matcast for the other sessions.

First, no one tuned in to the finals Saturday night because DC or JB were on the mic. In very rare occurrences do announcers either draw or repel viewers. Casual sports fans will find our sport when there is a compelling on mat story or depending on what else is on TV. I will be curious what the ratings will be tomorrow given the multiple Penn State storylines.

I do like my sports telecasts pretty straightforward. From a production standpoint, I think the telecast should’ve had DC or JB, not both. Four in the booth is too many, and DC and JB were largely filling the same role. They crowded out Mike Couzens, who I think is really good at play by play, as well as Rock Harrison, who should have been allowed more time to speak to the rules, particularly during 133 and with the inconsistency of the stalling calls throughout the finals.

i do think DC and JB would have been really good by themselves on an alternate telecast where they could riff for hardcore fans without having to worry about “calling” the bouts, like the Mannings do for MNF. Maybe next year.

[vsnej]

Talks way too much, will not miss him.  Let him go back to the nearest all you can eat Golden Corral.

[Rassling]

Too late, he ain’t coming back. We’ll never know just what may have been in store for D1 wrestling down the road. I say he was there for a reason especially when 3 hours of FREE UFC live coverage followed immediately after the NCAA finals on the same channel.

[forkemaz]

2 hours ago, ionel said:

DC & JB so much better than Gibbons, Johnson, Sparks combos.  

Robles, gibbons, Sparks is the golden standard in my opinion. All knowledgeable, all professional, all passionate. Well gibbons can seem less so but he is.

[ChickenWing]

Burroughs talked too much about himself but in today's world that may be the norm.

 

I like DC but I'm biased. I followed him at Ok State and I sat next to him on a flight from OKC to Phoenix in 2004. He was on the Olympic team (Athens) and heading to the Training Center in Tempe. When he found out I had wrestled in college he talked non-stop and it was fun. He's a very smart and personable guy. He even informed me my alma mater was getting a new coach (Mark Branch).

Edited March 25 by ChickenWing

[ionel]

4 hours ago, forkemaz said:

Robles, gibbons, Sparks is the golden standard in my opinion. All knowledgeable, all professional, all passionate. Well gibbons can seem less so but he is.

But we don't have to have old things we could have nice new things.  How about Robles, JB & Hardell Moore?  

[dragit]

7 hours ago, Elevator said:

He was really bad, but got better for the finals.  His problem is he says whatever he thinks (much of which is idiotic) and babbles on endlessly about topics other than the match or matches going on. 

In other words he basically doesn't do his job and sucks to the extent he does.  Burroughs is excellent.  And they already have an enthusiastic caffeinated yeller, Harrison, who unlike Cormier actually contributes helpful commentary in addition to his energy.  

[dragit]

7 minutes ago, ionel said:

But we don't have to have old things we could have nice new things.  How about Robles, JB & Hardell Moore?  

I'll counter with Burroughs, Gibbons, and Harrison.  

[Eagle26]

Everybody is always critical of announcers no matter what. Kinda like being a ref, you’re always going to upset some people. So I do feel bad for him. That said, I have to admit that I thought DC talked way too much and it was often about things that weren’t really relevant