* Our scene begins on a cold rainy night in a large hospital sometime in the early 1970's*

Dr. Jules: Push Mrs. Styles, dammit PUSH!

Mrs. Styles: I'M PUSHING, I'M PUSHING!

Dr. Jules: You've got to push harder! I can almost see the head!

Mrs. Styles: OOOH.. *expletive deleted*

Dr. Jules: Are you okay mamn?

Mrs. Styles: OOOOOH MY,,,

Dr. Jules: Now please try to remain calm and concentrate your energy Mrs. Styles, we're almost all finished up here.

*final contractions begin*

*Intense pain*

Mrs. Styles: OHHH... OOOOOOHHHH....OOOOHHHHHH MY GOD!!!!!

*A newborn baby bursts out from his mothers bloody womb still in his protective bag of goo. After popping out he then hangs upside down by his own umbilical cord*

Dr: Jules: You have a beautiful baby boy Mrs. Styles... What do you want to call him?

Mrs Styles: * nearly passed out from the pain of childbirth* His name will be Joseph...

Dr. Jules: What a lovely name Mrs. Styles... Hey there little Joey.. *snips umbilical cord*

Baby Joey: WAAAAAAAAAH! OH MY GAAAAA GAAAA!

Oh yeah welcome to.... Pulp Wrestling

If that intro right there made any of my readers feel abit queasy then I sincerely apologize for that. Now onto today's topic.


Changing Styles





For seven years Joey Styles was the voice of ECW. He was for the majority of ECW fans the epitome of what a solid announcer should sound like. Though he was not blessed with a tremendously 'listener friendly' voice or any kind of glamorous looks he managed to carve himself out a niche as one of wrestling's foremost play by play men. I was always a fan of his work from the very first time I heard him call a match. Sure he started off kind of shaky back in 93 and 94 but that's to be expected of anyone who's adapting to a new environment. Especially one as insane as ECW was back then.

Joey forged ahead though and acquired with him the aforementioned 'niche' in the industry as one of the most intelligent and well spoken announcers in the business. I think (although don't quote me on this) that he is probably the only person to call an entire Pay Pew View without the aid of a color commentator. Joey Styles never required much help in ECW though. For pretty much his entire first few years there he rarely if ever had any help at all behind the booth.


All that changed in 1999 though when he found the man with whom he'd go on to make one of the greatest vocal greatest pairings in pro-wrestling history with. Cyrus. Formally known as 'The Jackal' in the WWE, Don 'Cyrus' Callis played the perfect comic foil to Styles dorky play by play persona. The two of them would go on to to call every single ECW Pay per view together until that company's final demise in 2001. Also during this time Styles found success with the hilariously foul mouthed Joel, 'the man who is so big he can't help from hurtin er'' Gertner.

Styles and Gertner would go on to form a partnership of sorts as they both feuded with fellow announcer and the head of 'The Network' , the aforementioned Cyrus. While this may have been what many consider to be the least exciting period in ECW's storied history Joey Styles commentating was still top notch throughout. Although I do agree that it is a sad statement on a company when your hottest and longest running storyline is one involving your announcers and not your wrestlers.

I keep saying that Styles was a great announcer, so I guess if I intend to maintain even a modest amount of respect from you readers I should probably back up this statement with some solid facts. The things I will always remember about Mr. Styles and what I believe makes him such a good play by play man is his amazing vault of wrestling knowledge. The fact that he can hold all of those facts together in his head is truly impressive. He probably called some moves back in the day that were so obscure or innovative that they would have probably even made 'Mike Tenay' go ''What the f***!?''

His vast knowledge of wrestling moves was not the only thing he had going for him though. Along with that knowledge he possessed an ability that was exceedingly rare among the announcers of his generation. He actually called the matches! In an age when most companies were only focused on advancing the main storylines and sometimes whole matches seemed to go on unnoticed by the likes of JR & King ( Who were usually too busy talking about 'Stone Cold' or 'Puppies' to pay attention to what was going on in the ring or Tony Shivani and Bobby Heenan ( Who were too busy proclaiming that night's show as the 'Greatest Nitro In The History Of Nitros' to give a shit about the wrestling) Joey styles was a breath of fresh air for sure.

To top off this tasty play by play ice-cream sammich, when he was in ECW, Joey Styles truly packed a punch. Meaning he had a serious 'in your face' kind of attitude that has yet to be successfully copied by any other announcer I've ever heard. I'm not just talking about the hotline he used to run either. I'm sure his mouth probably got him a considerable amount of heat back during his tenure in ECW. But apparently not so much heat that the WWE didn't try (albeit unsuccessfully) to acquire his talents before and after the collapse of Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Some of my favorite moments of listening to him were during the final days of ECW on TNN. It was here that you really got to sense his distaste for the lousy network deal that ECW had. The following is not a Joey Styles quote, but yet another Joel "Put your lipstick on my dipstick" Gertner ( I'm sorry but I just love quoting that guy) offering. It was around the time of ECW's final show on TNN ( Which had recently changed it's name from' The Nashville Network' to the more geographically inclusive ' The National Network'. Along with the new name came a new motto, 'We've Got Pop' to which Joey asked what was it before that? To which The Quintessential Studmuffin replied... 'We f*** Pigs'. Classic.

When he was not being comically sarcastic or incurring the wrath of his network superiors though Joey Styles had a genuine nack for emotion. Looking back at some matches like the infamous Two Out Of Three Falls match up between Dean Malenko & Eddie Guerrero and also the night Terry Funk one the ECW Championship at the company's very first Pay Per View it is hard to ignore the audibly emotional styles as he echos the sentiments of every single wrestling fan who was in attendance on those nights. I can still vividly recall in my mind the way his voice cracked when he made the call 'He's Fifty Three years old' in reference to Terry Funk's big win over Raven.

It's these kinds of calls that remind you of how important good commentating is to wrestling. If you don't agree just try and imagine Mick Foley's infamous 'Hell In The Cell Match' without hearing Jim Ross's famous calls of 'Would somebody stop the damn match!' and 'As God as my witness, he is broken in half!' Takes a little away from the memories doesn't it? Styles displayed a similar sympathy during the very underrated match between Mike Awesome and Spike Dudley at 'Guilty As Charged' 2000. During that match he argued with Cyrus that stopping the match due to Spike Dudley's inability to defend himself to be a 'logical conclusion!'

After ECW lost it's television deal in late 2000 it was only a matter of time before those final doors would eventually close forever. On January 7th 2001 Joey Styles commentated his final show for the ECW promotion during the 'Guilty As Charged' 2001 pay per view. After this night it would be nearly five years before we would get to hear his voice on national TV again. During this time after the collapse of ECW, I am told he did do some various indy dates for a few companies and also provided commentary for the 'Now we're defunct, now we're not.. Oh wait, yeah we still are.' MLW. ( Major League Wrestling)

Aside from doing play by play for offshoot rip-offs of ECW, Styles for the most part just went back to his peaceful and quiet existence down in 'Hot-lanta' G.A. When residing there he passed most of his time at his old career in selling advertisements. ( A really great career for someone interested in wrestling to become familiar with by the way)

Then in 2005 Joey Styles finally agreed to work for the company he had once rallied people against. In June of that year he did the play by play for WWE's version of ECW opposite the hardcore legend Mick Foley. For those who had never heard his work previously this must have been a truly ear opening experience. On this night he ran the gauntlet of emotions, from funny, to emotional, to angry and God knows what all else. The following is a list of calls he made during that show that still stick out to me as rather brilliant.

In reference to Kid Kash 'There he is Mr. TNA, Total Non-Stop Attitude!'

After Nova got creamed by a Balls Mahoney Chair-shot ' Now that's gotta be even more painful than having to be Simon Dean every Monday Night! ( Yeah I'm fired, I know)

And also his vicious verbal attack on Mike Awesome whom he called a 'Judas' was great. In late 2005 the WWE made the rash decision to replace Jim Ross. With the coach in over his head at the play by play position they decided to bring in the only man they thought capable of filling the big Oklahomans shoes, Joey Styles. On his first night at Taboo Tuesday he showed flashes of why he was everyone's favorite play by play man back in the day. Especially during The Coach vs Batista match when he said 'Batista is doing to Coach, what Coach does to play by play every Monday night!

Since then though, I'm sorry to report that it's been mostly downhill from there. On Raw right now Joey Styles almost seems like a little kid trapped in between two big mocking older guys in 'The King' and 'The Coach'. He often times has to yell his calls out just to be noticed and he has totally lost any kind of edge that he once had. Aside from the occasional ECW reference Styles has basically become your typical WWE lap-dog. But then again he hasn't. Reportedly Vince McMahon was none too happy about the fact that Styles style was mainly to focus on the in ring action rather than advancing those brilliant old WWE Storylines (sarcasm). And apparently the verbal thrashing he got from Vince has completely taken all the fight out of him too.

It's almost hard to fight back the urge to vomit whenever Styles whips out one of those forced 'The CHAMP is here' kind of lines. It's almost as if I'm seeing my former old best buddy in high-school turned into a nude model for some sleazy 2nd rate gay porno mag. What will it take to summon up the old Joey Styles though? Was his former success all merely a result of Paul Heyman's backstage coaching and also him 'feeding him what to say' through the headset. I just almost can't even bring myself to believe that.

Whatever the reason is, this little man who calls the action regularly on Monday Nights now is not the Joey Styles I used to know. He's become a complete shell of his former self. And he's even beginning to pick up some of JR's more annoying traits like showing favoritism to certain wrestlers. Is it just me or has Rob Van Dam become the new 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin on Raw? At least he doesn't talk about him during other matches though, so that's a plus.

To end this little tirade here. There will always be a little part of me that will mark out whenever I hear Joey Styles belt out a classic 'Oh My God!?!' ( or "Ay dios mio!" which is Oh my God in Spanish.) But right now I think both me and the almighty are in aggreeance on one issue, Joey Styles needs an overhaul. If he would just show a tenth of the emotion he had during that 'Awesome/Tanaka' match at One Night Stand last year he would be light years ahead of where he is now.

To put it simply he needs to stand up to Lawler and Coachman and let the world know that Joey Styles is not a push-over, or just another empty suit with a talking head attached to it. If he could do this then both the current product and my personal entertainment would be vastly, vastly improved. But until he accomplishes that one little thing, he will never again re-capture his lost luster. It's sad but true. So Joey, this is coming from a true fan heart to heart, one vatto to another. Get your f***ing act together mang!

*The End*




Alright, I guess a column about an announcer isn't probably the most exciting thing I could have picked to write about. But this has been on my mind for a while now. And also it was about time I posted another column here. For those of you who are looking forward to my more "Se7en" like style of column writing or my "Love Song" style I have two columns that I am currently working on right now that are both pretty close representations of those styles of writing. ( Not to say they're rip-offs that is, and even if they were, how can one rip off himself? Huh?) Anyway, it's time for the Commandments.. bitches.

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