Everybody knows that JBL and Jerry “The King” Lawler are former wrestlers with championship histories. King even has a fairly extensive resume of wrestling matches while being an active commentator.
What you may have seen but don’t remember are these five matches that saw regular commentary team members in matches, even though they were never trained to wrestle.
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#5 Oklahoma vs. Asya (WCW Nitro - January 10, 2000)
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WCW had a lot of really, really bad ideas, especially during the last 3 years of their existence. The worst part of all, is that they often decided to run with them just because the guys writing the show thought what they were doing was funny -- even if they knew the audience didn’t.
WWE, of course, isn’t without their many misgivings in this category, but we will get to that later.
Former WWE writing team member Ed Ferrara, good friend and writing partner to the infamous Vince Russo, jumped to WCW in October of 1999.
Ferrara only spent about a year and a half in what was then the WWF, and when he and Russo could no longer hold a good relationship with boss Vince McMahon, it was time to go.
Many people believe that Vince and Ed were a major part of the reason WCW died, and things like the Oklahoma character are something people point at when the discussion arises.
Oklahoma was a parody of Jim Ross, played by Ed Ferrara, an insulting imitation all the way down to the facial mannerisms caused by JR’s bell’s palsy.
Ferrara is a trained wrestler, but only wrestled for 2 years in the mid-1990s. In this match, he called out any woman to fight him by saying to any taker: “bring your fat ass down here”.
Asya, essentially a parody of Chyna, was a muscled strong woman who took on the challenge. She ended up kicking his butt before another female wrestler, Madusa, came down to attack him.
He hit her in the head with a broom (after using barbeque sauce, of course) and held up the Cruiserweight Championship to celebrate. Oh, yeah.
The Cruiserweight Title was made a complete joke, with the worst member of the boy band stable “3 Count” Evan Karagias winning the belt. He lost it to Madusa (formerly WWF’s Alundra Blayze, who infamously dumped the WWF Women’s Title in the trash on NItro), who lost it to Oklahoma.
Who, of course, didn’t meet the weight requirement. Even though, you know, he got a title shot. Don’t know why that was allowed in the first place. WCW. Where the big boys play.
#4 Jim Ross vs. Triple H (WWE RAW - April 18, 2005)
Jonathan Coachman (who will appear on this list for a match exactly one year prior) was in full heel commentator mode. Triple H had lost the title to Batista just two weeks prior during WrestleMania 21 and decided to take his frustrations out on Jim Ross, because why not, I guess.
It was, as you might expect, a No Disqualification match, and JR, as you might expect, bled profusely. Like a stuck pig, to borrow a phrase.
I don’t understand what the obsession is with demolishing Jim Ross (and usually Jerry Lawler when he tries to interfere to save his friend). Triple H first tried to kill him way back in 1999 during a feud with Steve Austin, but why did he go after him during a feud with Batista? Who knows?
This match took place at Madison Square Garden, and JR actually won the match after Batista ran in and took out Ric Flair and Triple H. Still, Ross got absolutely destroyed and had to bleed everywhere. Again. Not cool.
#3 Jonathan Coachman vs. Tajiri (WWE Backlash - April 18, 2004)
Oh, The Coach. As a commentator, he was pretty good. As a character he was great. As a member of ESPN SportsCenter, he does a fantastic job.
He’s not necessarily somebody who should have ever stepped inside the squared circle. Coach got beat up a heck of a lot throughout the year 2007, but this match goes back to 2004.
April’s annual Backlash pay-per-view, which featured Benoit vs. Michaels vs. Triple H in a rematch of the classic WrestleMania triple threat the previous month, also saw Jonathan Coachman take on Tajiri.
Coach actually ended up beating Tajiri after interference from Lance Cade (Garrison Cade at the time) and he went on to wrestle in a few too many somewhat competitive matches afterwards.
The big issues with this match were two things: One, The Coach got in far too much offence, as he should have gotten exactly zero; two, the match should have never happened in the first place.
Tajiri is better than that, even though he is great at comedy. Which, although you would expect it to be, this match actually wasn’t.
To be completely fair, the match was actually fairly okay, and it was short. But still, it happened. On a pay-per-view nonetheless. Ew.
#2 Jim Ross vs. Eric Bischoff (WWE RAW - February 17, 2003)
Remember that time Stone Cold Steve Austin, wrestled Eric Bischoff on PPV, just over one month before the final match of his career? Yeah. that was awesome.
It wasn’t? Oh. My bad.
So before that match, Eric Bischoff needed a warm-up. Being that he was the RAW General Manager at the time, he decided to make a match between himself and Stone Cold’s best friend in WWE, Good ‘Ol JR. Not cool, dude. Not cool at all. Eric Bischoff, as they say, has no chill.
So the match happened on the final Monday Night RAW before the No Way Out show in 2003, and, yeah. It happened.
Bischoff, a former pro kickboxer, started with a martial arts display, destroying a wooden board and a watermelon before being interrupted by JR. Bischoff mocked him and mocked karate (for some reason -- maybe because he thought it was funny?) before getting slapped in the face by Ross.
Val Venis, portraying the evil Chief Morley character at the time, helped beat JR up, and Bischoff kicked a cinder block that was placed on JR’s head.
Ross bled from the attack, Jerry Lawler tried to save him but couldn’t, and Bischoff got the pin. In the end, it wasn’t necessarily a bad angle to put some heat on the match with Stone Cold at that Sunday’s upcoming PPV, but the PPV match should never have been made in the first place. It was a crap show. This just added to it.
#1 Michael Cole vs. Jerry Lawler (WrestleMania 27 - April 3, 2011)
WrestleMania 27 was one of the worst WrestleMania events of all time. A boring match between Triple H and The Undertaker (who went on to have an all-time classic one year later) and a disappointing match in the main event between John Cena and The Miz headlined this stinker.
Another highly publicized match on the card was EVIL Michael Cole vs. Jerry Lawler. Michael Cole “graced” us with one of the worst long-running heel commentator gimmicks of all time -- heck, it was one of the worst heel characters of all time in general.
Praising The Miz, hating Daniel Bryan, sitting in his own special glass box at ringside and overall just being insanely obnoxious were his most “entertaining” traits.
It seemed as though their match at WrestleMania 27 was going to mercifully end the feud between Cole and Lawler, and put the terrible heel version of Michael Cole to rest forever.
Instead, the exact opposite happened. Jack Swagger, who trained Cole for the match, interfered and cost Lawler the victory, and it wasn’t until TWO MONTHS LATER that Lawler finally got his revenge at Over The Limit.
We were supposed to get his classic piledriver after a two-to-three minute match, Cole getting kicked out of the ring and Lawler celebrating and going back to commentary after not even breaking a sweat.
Instead, Cole won, then he and Jack Swagger teamed up to beat Lawler and Jim Ross the next month at Extreme Rules in a “Country Whippin’ match”, because why not abuse Jim Ross for no good reason? Lawler finally won, as mentioned above, at Over The Limit, 4 weeks later. And we never got that damn piledriver.
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