Please…Don’t Hate 8.03.08: Don West & Mike Tenay

Posted by Julian Bond on 08.03.2008

Week in and week out, people seem to complain and rant about, what they call, the worst wrestling announce team EVER in the form of TNA Wrestling’s duo of Don West & Mike Tenay. We will discuss the basic (and somewhat) legit hatred towards the two and then argue why they’re actually not as bad as they seem. I’ll also debut my newest video section entitled “Lost & Found”.

Welcome everyone to Please…Don't Hate, the bi-weekly column which takes a look at some of the most hated on and complained about wrestlers, companies, and topics within the wrestling world. This week, we talk about one of the most hated-on topics, which isn't a wrestler nor a company, but instead about a couple of people who provide the weekly narration that accompany the visual wrestling antics for TNA. I'm talking about the long-standing commentator pair of Don West and Mike Tenay. I'll talk about why certain people want to poke out their ears at the mere sound of their voices and explain why I'm crazy for defending them.

In addition to my usual topic discussion, I would like to introduce a new regular section entitled "Lost & Found". This will be the place where I show clips of matches that I have fond memories of that may have been lost and/or forgotten by wrestling fans. I'll explain why I find the match to be of significance and then introduce the clip. Hope you all enjoy.

Reader Reverb
This is the section where two reader comments, one being for last week's topic and the other being against, are chosen and I give my two cents on them.

Note: I noticed that a few people were using the term WWE "extension" in their comments and I'm now just noticing that I was instead sticking to using the word "expansion" all throughout the column. So if this was the wrong term, then I apologize…I guess I thought that expansion sounded better.

Last column's topic: The WWE Expansion

Guest#7747 (Guest) comments:

OK, after reading several of these, I want to ask what the point of this column is. Has anyone EVER actually read one of these and decided to stop hating whatever the column is about? Seriously, most of the time I actually hate the thing more after I'm done reading about it. Long story short, your arguments are entirely unconvincing.

Why don't you just name the column "Devil's Advocate," or "The Contrarian," or "Whatever you say I say the opposite."

Just to nip this in the bud (again) for anyone who thinks the same thoughts as above said, with every single topic I have discussed in this column, it's because I either believe in or like the specific topic and want to encourage others to look through my point of view in attempt to stop the hate towards it. Although it may appear like so to others, I don't want to be just "another talking head" who tries to convert people to thinking the same way and purposely says things just to piss people off. I'm talking about the people and things in the wrestling world that are hated on A LOT and that I happen to like. I honestly don't hold it against anyone if they like or dislike my topics, just as long as I hopefully get people talking about it and getting them to offer their full options. My only pet peeve is when people constantly hate on things ‘just for the sake of' doing so. If you dislike something so much, then tell the people why you do so. If you don't have a reason that's more two words (i.e. "Just Because"), then you should just shut the hell up!! So Guest#7747, thanks for your comments and for reading the columns and I hope to hear from you again next week.

Michael Weyer (Registered) comments:

The best part of the brand extension is that it does give a chance for new stars to shine. Would MVP had gotten this far if he was on RAW overshadowed by HHH, Cena and Michaels? Hell, Cena cut his teeth on Smackdown to get to stardom and now it looks like RAW is showing younger talent (CM, Kofi, Rhodes and DiBiase) which is great. So yeah, the extension has helped and should continue despite its detractors.

Thanks for bringing this point as well. What I didn't really mention in the column was that a HUGE advantage of the brand extension was the push of younger stars. I also couldn't remotely imagine if there was only show with tons and tons of rookie talent trying to step into the spotlight; it just wouldn't work out. It's also funny that you mentioned Raw now being a good place for young talent because Smackdown (not this isn't right now as well) was used extensively for the same purpose initially after the split. People like Carlito, Randy Orton, and John Cena all got their starts on the show and eventually were elevated once they arrived on Raw. So in short, the more brands that exists, the more the spotlight is shared amongst the other talented wrestlers.

elvis.foley (Guest) comments:

"But honestly, even with this constant mix-up, fans should try to push this to the back of their heads to really enjoy the match-ups, while the WWE should (hopefully) put in a little better effort to tell the fans that sometimes these things happen without explanation."

On the whole, I enjoy your columns but I'm sorry - I cannot agree with this statement whatsoever ...

If the WWE wants to have separate brands then it is up to the WWE to explain why when there is inter-mingling of said brands.

Although, there really shouldn't be ANY of that crap happening anyways. I mean, if they want us to buy into it and believe that there really is a brand split then they need to act like there is a brand split. I really liked it before, at the beginning of the 'brand extension', when the shows really didn't have anything to do with the other - really other than the announcers bashing the other shows and putting their show over.

They even went so far as to write a worked reason as to why they were advertising their show during the other's broadcast. I think it was Steph (SD! GM at the time) who said that she was running adverts on RAW to try and steal their audience or something to that affect. Genius!

Also, and I know this has said before but warrants repeating, the more they do the cross-branding crap, the less significant it becomes. If they did cross-brand matches at ONLY WM - that would make them SO much more special. As it stands, we now see it as the norm. I mean, I could even deal with having them at the big 4 but that's it really. I happen to really enjoy the idea of the brand extension but, again - one of WWE's biggest problems - poor execution of a great idea.

With your comments, I'll be totally honest, I also really hate the fact that they don't explain why another brand's wrestler in on another show; this being the case ESPECIALLY with ECW and Smackdown. I know that they explained it via "the GMs made a deal to cross-promote talent", but it kind of irks me when the talent often appears on each others' show with no real acknowledgement from the commentators, "deal or no deal". I do also agree with you on liking it in the beginning of the split when they paid specific attention to details with explaining the competition and limitations to each of the brands. BUT the point I was trying to make was that despite having the lack of uniqueness and details that the brand split should entail, people shouldn't really racked their brains too much on this. At first I was mad (and sometime still am) at seeing the inconstancy with the split, but now I just shrug my shoulders and said "Hey…the Hardy Boys aren't supposed to be on Raw…but hey that's cool cause it means that it equals more cool matches for me to see." I admit that the WWE really needs to keep up with what they started by having more on-air awareness of the brand split/limitations and by having more of a "big match feel" to brand vs. brand match-ups, but in the meanwhile it's kind of silly to have that prevent anyone from enjoying a good match between great wrestlers, brand-split or not.


How can people hate on this wonderful face???






Why People Hate On…Don West & Mike Tenay
-Both are very annoying to hear on a regular basis
-Mike Tenay is one of the worst wrestling commentators ever
-Don West's lack of wrestling experience
-Commentary brings down TNA broadcasts


My Reasoning for Not Hating On… Don West & Mike Tenay
Okay. First thing first. I'm not saying this statement to gain favoritism from you the readers or to cop out of getting flack for this column's topic, but…I really don't like Mike Tenay. When I first started watching WCW, I loved the action, I loved the drama, and I loved the excitement, but every once in a while when I was horribly into a moment on the TV screen, Tenay would pop up and say the STUPIDEST un-relatable and irrelevant comment that would kill the whole thing for me in one fell swoop. The other commentators were cool with me (Schivonee, Hennan), but I totally cringed every other time when something came out of Tenay's mouth. The way he tried to make things much, much, MUCH more than they were kind of insulted me as a fan and I just really never felt that he added on too much to the broadcast team.

Still holding this feeling tight, when WCW shut down, I was relived that I won't be hearing Tenay's voice again, but lo and behold when a new upstart wrestling company named TNA began, I was totally pissed when I discovered that the man I despised was back on the mic. On top of this, I was also thrown off that the "crazy dude who sells baseball cards on QVC at midnights" was his co-anchor. So initially, I was totally turned off by TNA's commentators, despite loving the in-ring action. This was back in 2002. But this is my thing now. After watching the program since day one, I've gotten used to two as a pretty solid announcing team and truly believe that they are not the "worst wrestling commentators of all time" as a lot people think.

First off, I still think Tenay kind of sucks and is pretty annoying, but people have to realize that he helps balance out the team of him and West with his known creditability as a long-time announcer and overall knowledge of the wrestling business. For every unnecessary and overdramatic "self-realization of what was just seen on our screen", Tenay actually says something interesting about the background or history of the wrestlers in the ring (i.e. World X-Cup wrestlers' international backgrounds). Sure, one may say that he's just reading this info from cue cards or on a screen, but when he does you can actually believe that he knows what's he talking about because of his long standing reputation. So it's true that a very legit argument can be said to replace Tenay with someone else, but the counter to this is the question of who can replace him that has the same amount of experience and knowledge, besides retired wrestlers who aren't interested or other commentators from different companies. Until anyone can answer this, then the best choice is Tenay.

As for Don West, people really need to stop hating on him so much and comparing him to Tenay. For all of us who stayed up late at night when were younger switching through channels all saw what kind of crazy, insane guy West was on the QVC shopping network. Sure I wouldn't shell out $400 for one of his exclusive, never-before-seen set of invaluable rookie baseball cards, but I thought that he was sure as hell very passionate (to say the least) about his job. In the beginning of his stint with TNA, he did sound more like his "QVC self", but eventually and very surprisingly toned his style down to fit that of a solid wrestling announcer. True he's not the best quality commentator in the world, but he's pretty damn good for a guy who used to sell ninja swords and Mickey Mantle cards.

Overall, Don West and Mike Tenay are perfect for one another. Tenay helps make up for West's lack of wrestling knowledge and experience, while West helps cancels out Tenay's annoyingness with his down-to-earth commentary. So I'm not asking you to fully not hate on the duo (particularly Tenay), but really just to understand why TNA is sticking with them and to realize that they aren't as bad as people make them out to be. If anyone thinks that they're the worst in the world, then they should honestly stop complaining already and stop watching TNA every week. They'll miss out on some great wrestling, but at least we all won't have to hear their endless rants about trashing them on a regular basis.


Lost & Found
Since Tenay and West have no real "video highlights" to speak of, I thought that it would be the perfect time to introduce my new regular section entitled "Lost & Found". I wanted to start this because I've seen soooooo many various matches (mostly because of the Internet and the power of Netflix) that I loved and then discovered that none of my friends have seen some of them nor have the matches really been highlighted on any wrestling website. So I just didn't want to do the same old routine of showing you the match and saying that it's cool, but I also wanted to share my specific reasoning on why I think that the match was/is underrated and the unique back story and in-ring actions which make it stand out from the rest.

So before I introduce the first installment, I would like to give a shout-out to every single solitary person who takes the time to put up wrestling matches/footage on the Internet (particularly YouTube), because I'm too lazy to do it myself and I pretty much wouldn't be able to easily pull the videos for all of my columns without them. So on a seriously note, thank you guys. Now on to "Lost & Found"…


RVD & Jerry Lynn vs. The Impact Players (Justin Credible & Lance Storm)
ECW Heatwave 1999

Heatwave 99' was the first ECW PPV that I had ever ordered. I've been watching the program for a good year and that one feud that made me finally shell out the cash to buy a PPV was between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn. One night, I turned into ECW TV when they were playing highlights from their epic encounters from both Living Dangerously and Hardcore Heaven over the TV Title and my mouth just hit the floor. I knew that they were both good in the ring, but not THAT GOOD!! Even after these two bouts, the guys were still feuding over who was the best "F'N Show". So to make things even more interesting, they added the newly formed team of Justin Credible and Lance Storm (two equally awesome wrestlers as well) to the mix and all four men ended brawling with one another all the way to their main event match at Heatwave, which didn't disappoint in the least bit.

The match in my opinion was the true definition of a great tag-team bout: various styles from each competitor, crazy teamwork from both sides, and an insane ending full of too many nearfall pins to count. It's kind of sad that this match was overshadowed by the RVD/Lynn bout that preceded it because this was an excellent example of how you build up a tag-team feud and then have it main-event and headline (which is a rarity) a pay-per-view.

Enjoy this in all of its entirety!!!!!




On The Next Episode of…"Please…Don't Hate"
He is looked at as one of the biggest, meanest, and according to a majority of wrestling fans, worst wrestlers of all time and I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt. While I can't deny his sub-par in ring skills, I still want to argue my belief and reasoning on why people shouldn't hate so much on The Great Khali.