4 Ups And Downs From Last Night's WWE Smackdown (Jan 15)

UPS

4. The New Commentary Team Worked Well Together

Smackdown's new commentary team made its debut this week with two new additions. Michael Cole remained from the old team with the WWE Hall of Famer Jerry Lawler and Byron Saxton by his side. They replaced Tom Phillips as well as JBL, who is still announcing on Raw. Lawler is still on PPVs too. The new team worked well together because Cole is locked in as the main play by play guy. Whether we like him or not, we're used to him. It would be nice if he called moves better and showed enthusiasm more for certain things, but it's probably not going to change any time soon. Saxton is a guy familiar with all the wrestlers because he was a wrestler in WWE's developmental system for many years. He moved to commentary on NXT, then worked his way up from Superstars and Main Event. He leans towards the heels a bit although not as much as JBL does when he's on commentary. Lawler is well past his prime and we all know that. Hearing him talk on a two hour Smackdown is better than three hours of Raw. He probably knows he's going to retire in a year or two, so this is a good spot for him to go out on whenever he decides to call it quits. It's good that there's a different team than Raw. So far so good for them.