DieOff
04-17-2008, 05:31 PM
If you watched ECW you will have noticed that Mike Adamle, who has been a backstage interviewer for a few months now, has taken Joey Styles' announcing seat.
Adamle is a famous announcer with strong sports credentials and has worked for NBC Sports, NFL and the first American Gladiators. He was first used under the WWE banner with the defunct XFL owned by Vince McMahon. Kevin Dunne was the main man behind his signing and thinks Adamle can bring a more credible approach to calling WWE programming, despite being 58 (older than JR) and not a wrestling fan previously. Because of his impressive resume he makes $300,000 a year and would have done even if he was still being used sparingly backstage.
A lot of people in the company saw his first performance on ECW last night like the fans did, "painful" although Kevin Dunne's political stroke is likely to hold Adamle's position for at least a few more weeks.
The decision was only made last Friday and as noted many times, Vince McMahon has never been a fan of Joey Styles, feeling he calls the moves as opposed to selling the product and the storyline which Vince wants. This has come as a small shock internally because Styles has improved significantly in the WWE style of announcing. It comes down to Joey not having any political stroke or major supporters backing him up.
Styles' new job is heading up WWE.com although he still has a manager above him to answer to. WWE feel styles has the industry knowledge to know what should and shouldn't go on WWE.com, keeping in check embarrassing things like photo captions of WWE stars in Japan shaking hands with legendary Japanese wrestlers and calling them "Japanese fans," or the humorous postings in the "Industry News" section where news from independent sites like this one are rehashed despite it being about WWE (you think they'd know what is going on in their own company). This is by no means a step down for Styles but just an embarrassing reshuffle. He actually has more responsibilities than before and will have more chance to network with the higher-ups.
Adamle is a famous announcer with strong sports credentials and has worked for NBC Sports, NFL and the first American Gladiators. He was first used under the WWE banner with the defunct XFL owned by Vince McMahon. Kevin Dunne was the main man behind his signing and thinks Adamle can bring a more credible approach to calling WWE programming, despite being 58 (older than JR) and not a wrestling fan previously. Because of his impressive resume he makes $300,000 a year and would have done even if he was still being used sparingly backstage.
A lot of people in the company saw his first performance on ECW last night like the fans did, "painful" although Kevin Dunne's political stroke is likely to hold Adamle's position for at least a few more weeks.
The decision was only made last Friday and as noted many times, Vince McMahon has never been a fan of Joey Styles, feeling he calls the moves as opposed to selling the product and the storyline which Vince wants. This has come as a small shock internally because Styles has improved significantly in the WWE style of announcing. It comes down to Joey not having any political stroke or major supporters backing him up.
Styles' new job is heading up WWE.com although he still has a manager above him to answer to. WWE feel styles has the industry knowledge to know what should and shouldn't go on WWE.com, keeping in check embarrassing things like photo captions of WWE stars in Japan shaking hands with legendary Japanese wrestlers and calling them "Japanese fans," or the humorous postings in the "Industry News" section where news from independent sites like this one are rehashed despite it being about WWE (you think they'd know what is going on in their own company). This is by no means a step down for Styles but just an embarrassing reshuffle. He actually has more responsibilities than before and will have more chance to network with the higher-ups.