Rewatching The Last Wrestling Show To Beat WWE Raw In The Ratings
3. Utilising Industry Veterans
While AEW has Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone propping up its programming, WWE takes a slightly different approach to its non-wrestling talent.
Famously, Vince McMahon's sports entertainment behemoth puts more value in the supposed aesthetic benefit of having younger faces at its announce desk. Sure, we may still got the odd Jerry Lawler appearance at the desk if the company has a vacancy to temporarily fill, but its more commonplace for WWE to wheel out a Vic Joseph or Tom Phillips from its conveyor belt of generic commentators.
As Jim Ross has so often discussed, WWE has a certain shelf live for its non-wrestling talent, particularly when it comes to those who would be used in an on-screen role. Forget the benefit that those veterans bring to the table in terms of experience, McMahon's promotion is happy to disregarded all of this.
With wrestling fans having been conditioned to this WWE approach for the past two decades, it's refreshing to see so many older heads in pivotal roles on WCW Nitro back in 1998.
There's a 54-year-old Bobby Heenan, 47-year-old Larry Zbyszko and 41-year-old Tony Schiavone at the commentary table, and there's a near-56-year-old 'Mean' Gene Okerlund on interview duties. All four of those names were long-standing veterans of the industry by '98, and WCW valued the experience and legitimacy that they brought to WCW programming.
When compared to the current WWE landscape, in that regard it's night and day.