Color Commentary: 5 minutes of fiction

Welcome to Color Commentary, my thoughts related to fictional storytelling.

In professional wrestling, the athletes aren’t the only people running the show. While they’re performing, the referee, commentators and people backstage are adjust the match according to how it’s going over with the live audience. It’s not a precise science, and there are a lot of moving parts.

Usually on commentary there’s a straight man: the guy who wants to talk about the events rationally. Then there’s the color commentator, who’s all emotion (either for or against someone or something). This setup isn’t unique to wrestling, you’ll find it in a lot of media and communications, and some of the most successful programs use the same format.

Lawler and Ross, were Hall of Fame presenters, and were the voice of WWE during some of the most success the company ever had. As a team, they worked amazingly well, with both getting incredibly excited when calling a match, but never failing to tell the audience the rest of the story surrounding the people in the ring.

You’ll find color commentators in every media, in fact, most personality based programming is playing on some version of a straight man or the color guy. Think Howard Stern and Robin, or Conan and Andy, even Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon.

What type of commentary is this?

In that spirit, and cause I think it’s fun to journal my thoughts, I’m adding these opinions that I feel you need to read. Sometimes I’ll play it straight. Other’s will probably be pure hyperbole. There’s a lot in the world of professional wrestling, but we’re not going to stop there, we’re going to cover all types of fiction throughout pop culture, and do our best to keep it all under 5 minutes.