7 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Roadblock
3. Where Were Phillips And Graves?
One of the strong points about NXT is that its announce teams are consistently better than anything WWE throws out there. Tom Phillips and Corey Graves arent Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler in their heyday, but theyre a hell of a lot better than Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton. This become evident during the NXT Tag Team Championship match, which was called by the Raw announce team.
At one point, the Revival tried a tag while Dash Wilder was in trouble, but Scott Dawson didnt have a hold of the tag rope, so the referee wisely wouldnt allow the tag. Cole, in his infinite wisdom, speculated that the ref didnt see the tag, which could have been forgiven if the ref hadnt been looking directly at the tag, pointed at the tag rope and sent Dawson back to the apron. It might seem like a minor nitpicking moment, but a major purpose of an announce team is to point stuff like this out to the casual fan so they can follow the action better. In this case, Cole just made it worse.
Also during the match JBL tried to name-drop tag teams that the Revival were reminiscent of, a good move since theyre often described as throwbacks. He tossed out the Minnesota Wrecking Crew of the 70s and Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson from the 80s and early 90s. Those comparisons made perfect sense since Dash and Dawsons style would fit in in the late 80s really well.
JBL then started talking about putting them in the Attitude Era alongside the Hardys, New Age Outlaws and APA. What? The Revivals tagline is, No flips, just fists. And somehow, JBL thinks the Outlaws mic shtick and the innovators of the TLC matches would be good comparisons. *Groan*