Corey Graves is pretty excellent.
 

Seriously the best commentator since...well shit, maybe J.R.

Your thoughts?

Pulls off the heel commentator pretty well and WWE seem to be behind him. Enjoyed JBL more though.

I liked JBL sometimes. More often than not, really. But sometimes it felt like he was too busy trying to cut down the other commentators to drive the story of the match. Graves will do it to Byron sometimes, but he doesn't just hang on it and keep drilling it in favor of calling the action.

Graves could be great without Vince or whoever feeding him lines and forcing to talk in an unnatural manner.

Definitely a talented guy though.

Agree, Byron just makes it real easy cut down. Grave can come off a bit whiny in my opinion when talking about superstars he doesn't like. Just goes to much into detail about why he dislikes them sometimes.

I prefer that to a heel commentator not liking someone just because. It adds depth.

He's done really well to become the color commentator of this shitty era. To think that this guy was once an independent wrestler who was struggling to find some sort of bad-ass aura in NXT, and kind of had this forced upon him. Who would have honestly guessed that Sterling James Keenan would have ever ended up here.

There are marks against him. He often feels very...phony. Polished in this "MTV" sort of way. Buuuuut, that kind of emphasizes just how hard this dude has worked, because if I remember correctly, he was not a natural.

I don't really get the phony vibe, but I think that's probably coming from on high.

JBL would overdo the heel stuff a bit. To the point where I'd be thinking " god just shut up and let me watch the match."

Graves > JBL and its not even close....

Graves is excellent

Love Graves

Randy did an RKO on smackdown and Todd Phillips said the most corny "RKO... out of no where line."

Oh, definitely, but you can't separate that from the performances. I mean, Michael Cole would be excellent if he weren't towing a line and being a shill, but he is, so he's not.

Graves is great at what he does. Better than JBL is currently. But he just comes off like a dude "trying" to be a good commentator. I dunno. It smacks of effort. It's better than there being no effort, don't get me wrong, but the best ever would make it look effortless.

I liked JBL okay at the start but somewhere along the way he started to sound just as robotic and disingenuous as Michael Cole except he was a slightly over the top asshole.

Corey Graves is awesome I need a compilation of his digs against Elias Sampson those are gold.

JBL was really good circa 2006. He really isn't necessary anymore now. He's had something resembling a kayfabe Hall of Fame career. Just let him disappear and only return if he wants to manage a team heading into Survivor Series and they want a really good promo.