Voodoo's Rants Part II: Michael Cole Was ALMOST the Best Thing Since Mr. McMahon

In Part II of my latest series, Voodoo Magic's Rants, I will take a look at one of the most infuriatingly close calls in recent years: Michael Cole coming oh-so-close to becoming a top-shelf heel.

This past year, we have  seen a curious phenomenon in terms of character development; namely, Michael Cole has become a top heel in WWE. If you were to have said this ten, fifteen years ago when he was being given wedgies by DX and getting ripped on by The Rock, the majority of wrestling fans would have laughed uproariously. 

 Now? We nod in agreement. Not necessarily in sympathetic agreement, but we’d nod nonetheless. Say what you will about Cole–and a there are a lot who have said quite nasty things in regard to his push in recent months–but the facts are the facts: Michael Cole has become one of the better heel characters in recent years.

The transition is not an original one: weasel-y guy who people find annoying hones his character into a weasel-y guy who is really good at being annoying. Cole’s main bromance, The Miz, did it so well he became WWE Champion and headlined Wrestlemania. Vince McMahon turned himself into Mr. McMahon, the power-hungry, smarmy S.O.B. who ran things his way and screwed over people he did not like.

 Now we have Cole. First he starts off as the spokesperson for the Anonymous Raw GM, then he becomes an outspoken critic of Daniel Bryan, then he starts ripping on worthless NXT/Diva segments (obnoxious or not, can you really blame him for finding Diva NXT segments boring?). Soon enough, he becomes a smarmy heel that is the driving force behind one of the bigger feuds in recent months, that being Cole-Lawler.

Say what you will about the quality of the matches Cole had with Lawler – and they were BAD – it is impossible to deny that 1) this feud gave the vastly underrated Jack Swagger something to do again, 2) it gave us the hilarious Cole Mine and 3) seeing Cole beaten up and humiliated was quite the cathartic payoff. 

 It was undeniable: in the new Michael Cole, WWE had given its fans the best heel character since Mr. McMahon.

Well, almost.

See, the problem was not Cole’s character. Say what you will about Cole, but he obviously worked his butt off to get better as a character. His promos were quite good, and more importantly he seemed to really be enjoying himself out there, and his love of getting a chance to really go over the top was evident in his segments. 

He fed off the crowd’s hatred. He just, unfortunately, was fed to us too much.

In the end, Cole’s biggest problem was that WWE just gave us too much of him.  It was fine when he was ripping on Bryan or the occasional Diva segment. It was fine when he and Lawler would bicker here and there, and even when he cost Lawler the WWE Championship because he wanted his BFF, The Miz, to retain. 

But when he started interrupting Diva matches and having them thrown out, attacking Jim Ross, having extended in-ring segments with Lawler and having a series of painfully bad matches with a man whose peak was in the 1970’s, then there is a problem. The thing about weasel-y heels like Cole (or McMahon before him), is that he needs two things to really succeed:

The Right Amount of Exposure: for a chicken-scratch (OK, I censored it, true) heel like Cole to succeed, he has to be fed to the fans in the right dosage.  You can’t overexpose a guy like Cole without someone to offset him and carry segments for him.  McMahon had excellent promo guys like The Rock and Triple H to carry the load for him when the abrasiveness of McMahon’s character got to be too much. 

Cole had Swagger who, while an underrated performer, does NOT have the promo chops to carry segments when Cole got to be too much.  Therefore, Cole had to do it himself, and too much of a smarmy, cowardly heel tips the scales from annoying in a “we will pay to see you get beat up” way to a “we will not pay to see you ever” kind of way (see: Jarrett, Jeff; Waltman, Sean). 

A Capable Foil: Any weasel-y heel worth his salt makes the fans want to see him get his head handed to him; who it is that does the head-handing is just as important.  McMahon at his zenith was arguably the most hated heel in the history of WWE; therefore, when they threw the uber-charismatic Steve Austin against him. They made magic together and drew all kinds of money.  Austin had natural charisma, ridiculously good promo skills, and an everyman-sense to him that made people go crazy to see him beat up the boss.

Cole?  He had Jerry Lawler (and I guess Jim Ross).  Lawler was, once upon a time, one of the all-time best at drawing heat.  Let’s not forget that, while Hulk Hogan caused the pro wrestling explosion in the 1980’s, Lawler’s feud with Andy Kaufman was arguably the impetus for pro wrestling gaining national attention.

His time, though, has passed.  Lawler is still an excellent promo guy, but he is not on the level of Austin (at least not now).  His ring skills have eroded to the point that he could not deliver the butt-kicking that we wanted to see.  At the Wrestlemania match, WWE felt the need to add in Austin himself to stir the pot and give the match the flair it needed since they likely (and justifiably) felt that the in-ring content would be terrible.

So what are we left with here?  WWE almost caught lightning in a bottle with Cole as a top heel but could not seal the deal.  They had something special with Cole and his grating persona, but due to overexposure and not enough done to counteract him, it went from being a potentially awesome feud to a borderline failed experiment.

NEXT TIME: All Aboard the Riley Express Part II & A Look Back at NXT