10 Awesome Things You Don't Remember About WWE's Ruthless Aggression Era

4. Joey Styles Lets Loose

The voice of Extreme Championship Wrestling always seemed like a peculiar choice to front commentary for a WWE broadcast, let alone to permanently fill the position on the company€™s flagship show Monday Night RAW. But that€™s exactly what took place in late 2005, after Jim Ross was sidelined following a serious surgery. Styles was one of those perfect storms of talent: highly intelligent and articulate, with a whole bushel of fried potatoes on his shoulder, he made most other commentators sound like they were sleeping. When it was decided to bring back a WWE version of the ECW brand, Styles was clearly the man to front it, and J.R.€™s slow return to work gave them the perfect €˜angry outsider€™ storyline with which to make the swap back again. Bullied backstage and belittled by Jerry €˜the King€™ Lawler on air (who notoriously had his own well-documented and entirely fictitious issues with ECW), Styles had kayfabe had enough, and on 1st May 2006 he had a worked altercation with Lawler that led to him €˜quitting€™ in high style, cutting a searing promo against him, against Vince McMahon, and against sports entertainment in general.One of WWE€™s top worked shoots of all time, Lawler€™s sullen, angry response and Styles€™ brilliant performance had many believing that the on-air resignation and dirty laundry was real. Styles has since moved to a behind the scenes role in the company, and currently works as the Vice President Of Digital Media Content. Irritate the man on Twitter, however, and you€™ll get some of the old extreme firebrand up in your face. Well, you can take the boy out of the Bronx, but you can€™t take the Bronx out of the boy.