Meltzer v. Monsoon, Round Whatever
By Scott Keith on 7th April 2021
Hello,
As has been well established, Meltzer (and the Observer readership in general) loathed Gorilla as an announcer, with Meltzer's reasoning being that Monsoon made the talent look bad by criticizing not hooking the leg, bad application of holds, saying “you're
not gonna beat so-and-so with this-and-that.” But here's the thing, Meltzer's argument is nonsense: Gorilla's approach was in fact all about putting over the product by selling the illusion that it's a legitimate sport. In real sports, announcers criticize
poor strategy and execution all the time. By doing that, Monsoon was sounding like a real sports announcer, and thus putting over the WWF's product. Furthermore, his “you're not gonna beat…” shtick served to get across how tough these wrestlers are: you
have to do a lot to them to put them down, and the wrestler in question was too tough to be beaten by a headlock/bodyslam/clothesline/etc.
I'm sure these points have been made before, but it bears repeating that Gorilla wasn't undermining the talent or exposing the business, he was putting it over as a genuine athletic competition. Meltzer was all wet, there.
Yeah but putting the talent over is literally Gorilla's job, not putting over whatever his own interpretation of what he wants the product to be. That's like Ed Whalen territory.