10 Things You Didn't Know Were Banned In Triple H's WWE
3. Full Autonomy At The Announce Table
Michael Cole is a better commentator now, but what does that mean?
He's still a cliché machine capable of only two tones: measured and incredibly loud, which is his attempt at putting the emotion of a big moment over. In reality, it is just noise. He's allowed to reference smaller promotions and veer into tangents with his colleagues that feel less like's crushing your hand as he holds it through story beats. His commentary is a slight improvement, but the idea that Michael Cole can finally be a better version of Michael Cole is a fundamentally flawed take because there isn't a better, more authentic Michael Cole: a great play-by-play man who like so much else was over-produced over the years. Unlike, say, a GUNTHER-type wrestler, Michael Cole is a product of a synthetic system and he is still bound to it.
WWE plays to a broad audience and part of that ethos is Cole, the voice of the entire company, screaming incessantly about the same thing in case you didn't get it the first time. He said "Perfectly legal" about 50 times at Extreme Rules. Jim Ross says that Tony Khan has never once got in his ear. There is an alternative way to produce talent, and while Khan's is not great either, Triple H's is closest to Vince's.
Vince McMahon took this directive to a phenomenally absurd degree, but the directive is still in place.