By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

It's been a rough few years for pro wrestling announcing, especially in WWE and now lately in TNA.

The last two weeks, Taz has been unprofessional and reached new heights of lazy. There's one form of lazy where you don't bother to do your job or show any enthusiasm for your job. There's a worse form of lazy where you mock those around you who are working hard and thus making you look bad. Taz's ridicule and hostility toward Todd Keneley has been a low point in his career. What's frustrating about it is that a motivated Taz could be the best color commentator in pro wrestling.

JBL is back and he is the best today. He knows wrestling history, he knows what the job of a color commentator is, and he executes it largely with professionalism and always comes across like he's happy to be on Smackdown. His preaching that Smackdown is the A-Brand might border on a credibility-killer, but it tells Smackdown viewers he isn't self-loathing that he's not on Raw. Taz comes across as self-loathing that he had to travel to the Impact Zone and waste his talents on a show so unworthy of him and work with people so beneath him.

Michael Cole went through the stretch where he was an obnoxious heel. The philosophy was he was being "entertaining" - for viewers and, perhaps more importantly, for Vince McMahon. Thankfully, after the Jerry Lawler heart attack, Cole reverted to the proper role as a straight-man backing law, order, and fairness.

Still, pro wrestling announcing is a mess. There is a lot of room for improvement. No voice is heard more often and thus nothing has more influence on how viewers feels about a product and how invested they get in wrestlers and matches than the announce team.

Announcers should enter a wrestling broadcast with these goals:

-Enhance the storylines and feuds, promote the matches, and accentuate how fans are supposed to feel about wrestlers - admire and root for the heroes and despise or root against the heels.

-They should be professional, and that entails realizing they aren't the stars of the show. They are facilitators. That doesn't mean they can't have a fun dynamic with their broadcast partner. They should seem like they're having a good time, but also that they're there to do a job - calling matches.

-Treat matches seriously. Everything that happens on a wrestling show ultimately leads to wrestling matches. The point of anything and everything is either battling to rise through the ranks to get a title shot, defend a title, or settle a grudge. Announcers should aim to make sure viewers know that.

-A lead announcer doing play-by-play should always be a babyface. Doing anything else makes them too much the focus, and it removes one of the most valuable roles they play - convincing viewers, who respect them, to buy a ticket or a order a PPV or stay tuned or watch next week.

-The color commentator shouldn't just try to tell jokes and ridicule their play-by-play announcer. A little jocular back-and-forth is fine. JBL sometimes takes things too far, but mostly his digs at Mathews add to the dynamic. Jerry Lawler and Cole have a good chemistry in this regard. Taz is the epitome of unprofessionalism, undercutting Todd Keneley's credibility with viewers. Even if Taz hates Keneley and thinks he's worthless, Taz is not doing his job if viewers walk away from Impact thinking that's the case. Taz should aim to make Keneley better. Keneley, by the way, is doing just fine, and Taz's attitude towards him seems entirely unjustified.

-Make viewers proud to be pro wrestling fans. Nothing the announcers do should make viewers feel like fools for enjoying the dramatized simulated combat that pro wrestling is. That means they need to be invested in it themselves. That emotional investment is seeing the best man win on an even playing field is contagious.

-During the time the show is on the air, announcers should suspend their disbelief and convey everything that happens as if it's as real as UFC. Jim Ross was stellar in this respect. He made you believe, at least for the time the show was on the air. Announcers should seem like they believe, because it makes it easier for the viewer to believe. And pro wrestling is most entertaining when you get so wrapped up in it, you forget that it's not a true competitive sport. Any announcer who fears some high school buddy of theirs will tune and see them taking this "crap" seriously and laugh at them shouldn't be on the air. Their job is to make it easier for viewers to get wrapped up in the moment. If the announcer is figuratively winking and acting like they're above it all, it destroys what the wrestlers are trying to accomplish in the ring.

All of this should seem obvious and go without say, but after a rough couple years of seeing pro wrestling announcing stray off into territory that is counter-productive to enhancing the wrestling show, it needs to be said.

Every day for nearly 1,000 days without skipping a day, I have recorded the Keller Hotline audio show for PWTorch VIP members. Today I answered VIP members questions on a variety of current topics. If you aren't a VIP member, you can sign up here: http://www.pwtorch.com/govip. New VIP-exclusive content, including the daily Keller Hotline, is accessible via iTunes, the Podcast app on iPhone, the BeyondPod app on Android, streaming or downloading via our VIP website, and within the new VIP sections of our new Apps for Android and iPhone.

(Wade Keller is founder and supervising editor of PWTorch.com and MMATorch.com. He began Pro Wrestling Torch in 1987, starting as a print newsletter and expanding since into a website, mobile apps, and podcasts.)

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