3 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Clash In Italy (Results & Review)
5. Cole Stumbles And Bumbles On The Mic
Jim Ross has gotten a fair amount of criticism in his later years for forgetting angles and bungling things on commentary, but the man has decades of prime match-calling to his credit, so he gets a decent amount of grace.
Michael Cole, on the other hand, has been serviceable at best while being dubbed “The Voice of WWE” simply due to his longevity. And now, as he enters his third decade of work for WWE, his match-calling has reached levels where he can’t even be counted on to call basic moves correctly.
During Clash in Italy, Cole botched several calls, including saying Cody Rhodes’ cartwheel was a “somersault;” missing a Pedigree and simply yelling, “face first!”; referring to Rhea Ripley’s basement dropkick as a “missile dropkick;” calling Rhea’s avalanche back suplex a “superplex;” dubbing Jade Cargill’s Blue Thunder Bomb a “sit-out powerbomb;” declaring that Sol Ruca had only won the North American Championship, with Corey Graves correcting that she also held the Speed Championship; and missing that Naomi (wife of Jimmy Uso) is technically a member of the Anoa’i family who has captured a world championship.
No one is perfect, but Cole has been slipping more often lately, and it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Calling a cartwheel a somersault is pretty bad.