A Stroll Down Memory Lane With John Watanabe
The former commentator reflects on his days with FMW and the Urban Wrestling Alliance.
The following has been sent in by John Watanabe, former wrestling commentator and current radio broadcaster:
I am blessed and honored to be able to share my experiences with The Wrestling Estate.
I thank God that I am celebrating the 20th anniversary of two nationally-seen pro wrestling promotions that I did on-camera hosting and play-by-play announcing for: the first release of Tokyopop’s English language presentation of FMW (Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling), as seen on home videos/DVDs and on Canada’s The Fight Network, as well as the debut of the syndicated Urban Wrestling Alliance TV series, which aired on UPN TV stations in 20 major markets.
Someone on LinkedIn sent me a private message asking “How did you become a pro wrestling announcer?” I auditioned for these announcing gigs. I learned about Tokyopop’s FMW audition through the entertainment trade publication Backstage West, and I got an audition for the Urban Wrestling Alliance through my then-theatrical talent agent John McCormick from The Morgan Agency in Hollywood. At both of these auditions, I was asked to, in front of a camera, do play-by-play while watching wrestling matches on a TV monitor. Also, while in the waiting room for both of these auditions, I was able to hear some of the talent who auditioned before me. I heard lots of screaming and yelling, while displaying very little to no knowledge of pro wrestling. Style without substance. In the opposite corner, for Tokyopop’s FMW gig, one auditionee, who I will not name here and who I respect for his knowledge and experience as a pro wrestler, did not get the announcing gig because one of our FMW directors said “he just didn’t have any personality.”
A credible wrestling announcer should have both knowledge of pro wrestling AND the ability to articulate that knowledge in a polished, professional manner in front of a camera and an audience, as well as coming across as a genuine proponent of what is being presented. If you don’t care, then why should your potential audience care? Also, I agree with my friend and former Chicago-based wrestler/promoter/trainer Sonny Rogers when he says that it’s good for aspiring talent to learn about the history of the business, and to show respect for the veterans who paved the way. Seeing aspects of old-school wrestling history in parts of the newer displays of pro wrestling is like studying the Bible’s prophetic Old Testament to gain a much better understanding of passages in the Bible’s New Testament.
On the wrestling side, along with being a longtime fan during wrestling’s regional territory days in the 1970s and ’80s, I did local ring announcing for house shows in the Midwest promoted by NWA promoter Gary Juster. I also interviewed wrestlers from various promotions on Illinois radio stations. On the professional performance side, along with working on-air at various radio stations in Illinois and California, I have acted in several TV commercials and corporate videos, and for professional stage productions. (It was an honor when I acted on stage several times for different professional theater plays at the Jack Benny Center For The Arts, in Waukegan, IL, the hometown of that legendary comedian.)
For the Urban Wrestling Alliance, at a second audition, I did play-by-play on a TV monitor again, while different people took turns sitting next to me and auditioned to be my UWA color commentator. The part went to Sean “Cross” Martin, a rapper from Ruff Ryders Entertainment. The Urban Wrestling Alliance combined hip hop music culture with professional wrestling, and on each TV episode, a music video aired, featuring a different artist, interspersed with match highlights. Cross was hired to cater to the hip hop music crowd, while I was known on the UWA set as “the wrestling connoisseur.”
In the year 2000, when I started doing announcing for FMW and the Urban Wrestling Alliance, I felt like I was walking farther and farther away from the no-frills, old-school wrestling that I grew up with, and closer and closer to the glitzy “sports-entertainment” product you see nowadays. The regional wrestling promotions I grew up with, promoted by Verne Gagne and Dick The Bruiser, took place in plain-looking, small spaces with bare-bones TV production values, but these promotions placed an emphasis on what you saw inside the ring, with the announcer calling the in-ring action spontaneously, hold-for-hold. Around 2000, and in the years following, wrestling became more and more of an elaborate, Hollywood-style television production, with the in-ring wrestling being a comparatively smaller part of the whole. Looking at an old call sheet and staff & crew list in front of me right now, the Urban Wrestling Alliance had departments for make-up & hair, wardrobe, catering, music supervision and art direction, among other departments, as well as an acting coach, who was veteran TV and movie character actor David Dunard. One member of our Urban Wrestling Alliance writing team also worked for “The Steve Harvey Show.”
While some of the Urban Wrestling Alliance talent stuck to the writers’ scripts, and maybe some felt comfortable doing things that way, or in some cases they were too green to improvise, I’m thankful that the UWA writing team caught on immediately that all I needed were bullet points. As a side note, when it comes to improvisation skills, I give much credit to my old improv teacher and mentor, the late, great comedian Avery Schreiber, and to Second City Chicago alumni Jeff Michalski and his wife Jane Morris.
As for the FMW videos presented by Tokyopop, the first FMW videos were scripted out, word-for-word, by a team of Hollywood scriptwriters, and my first color commentator was actor and stand-up comic Eric Geller. However, after an awful reaction from Japanese wrestling fans to these Hollywood scriptwriters’ jokes and made-up, nonsensical stories, including, I kid you not, writing that Terry Funk was a fighter pilot from New Jersey, Tokyopop thankfully made the decision to have the next several FMW videos non-scripted, with my new color commentator Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski from Live Audio Wrestling and I doing non-scripted play-by-play and commentary, telling the real histories and the original storylines behind the FMW matches we were calling.
Reacting to the true wrestling fans’ bad reaction to the first FMW videos that were scripted, Tokyopop brand manager Joel Baral was somewhat shocked and said to me, “They (the wrestling fans) KNOW the stuff!” I explained to Joel that with certain newsletters and the internet, wrestling fans were becoming more sophisticated and wanted to know the real stories behind the wrestlers and the matches, during a time when entertainment in general was becoming more reality based. These Hollywood scriptwriters, who had some fine show biz credits, treated FMW like any fictionalized Hollywood TV sitcom or movie project, while not showing the knowledge and level of respect that true wrestling fans and the wrestling business deserved.
One person who helped and encouraged me a lot behind the scenes for the Urban Wrestling Alliance TV shows was Michael Braverman. Braverman and his business partner Barry Bloom have been talent representatives for many wrestling personalities, starting with Jesse “The Body” Ventura during the mid-1980s. Michael spent a lot of time prepping and coaching me on my Urban Wrestling Alliance TV announcing, either at the various arenas where we did UWA TV tapings or at the warehouse where Michael Modest trained our UWA wrestlers or in the production room at Richmel Productions in Los Angeles. Partly because he was an English major in college, Michael was enthusiastic about the need for me and others to tell stories, and he believed that the telling of good stories through the announcers’ words and the wrestlers’ in-ring actions, as opposed to spending tons of money on expensive, elaborate TV production sets, was needed for wrestling to be an ongoing success. Braverman and I were on the same page when it came to understanding the nuances of pro wrestling, while some in production did not, so he was a good guy to have by my side.
For both Tokyopop’s North American presentation of FMW and the Urban Wrestling Alliance, the people I worked with in production and post-production were fine at their craft. However, there were occasions when some production members were not very savvy about pro wrestling. For example, during one FMW taping, I called a move a superplex. Someone from the back then yelled “CUT!” “What?” “You said superplex…isn’t it called a suplex?” I then explained the difference between a superplex and a suplex, and this production guy replied, “Oh. Thanks.” Unfortunately, during a UWA TV match I called from ringside at the historic Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, an error was obviously made in post-production, which wound up on the air: Jorge Estrada, a Dusty Rhodes protege from Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, did a dropkick, followed by another dropkick, but the post-production audio made it sound like I was calling completely different moves in real time. Obviously, this post-production audio editor, by mistake, inserted the wrong clip of audio onto the wrong part of this match. He was skillful at editing in general, but apparently didn’t know the difference between a hammerlock and a hamburger. Oh well, I’ll keep looking forward and upward.
Thankfully, while doing some “looping” for different segments, I did catch a different mistake that a UWA TV post-production editor made before it hit the air. This one Urban Wrestling Alliance TV segment featured back-to-back video shots of Estrada, who had a phrase written on his trunks, and Bison Smith, a 300-pounder who worked for Pro Wrestling NOAH in Japan. During these back-to-back on-screen shots, this post-production editor made it sound like I was saying in sync with these video shots, “And as it says on Estrada’s trunks…that’s 300 pounds of buffalo meat!” Thankfully, one of our directors, Greg Huson, agreed with me that this post-production edit made it sound like I was saying that “300 pounds of Buffalo meat” was the phrase written on Estrada’s trunks, so then I did additional “looping” over these back-to-back on-screen shots of Estrada and Bison, tying together these visual shots of these two wrestlers in a way that made more sense for the viewer. My suggestion is that for TV wrestling shows, there should be at least one wrestling-savvy person in the post-production studio to make sure that the skilled audio-video editors are properly editing everything in a way that makes sense, from a wrestling perspective, within a wrestling context.
I am truly thankful for the positive feedback I’ve gotten from people who have worked in the pro wrestling business. For example, Mike Dupree, who wrestled for Dick the Bruiser’s WWA and Al Tomko’s All Star Wrestling during the 1980s, told me that at first, his opinion “wasn’t very high” of me when he watched me do the scripted schtick that I was forced to do on the first FMW videos, but then when I was allowed to do my own thing on the non-scripted FMW videos, he told me that I “did great.” Also, 1970s & ’80s wrestler Handsome Johnny Starr, who managed Ox Baker in WWA, told me that I’m “great on the stick” and that “WWE should know about you!” To hear these compliments from pro wrestling industry people who I respect is such a blessing. I must also mention that my friend Handsome Johnny Starr, aka Pastor John Davis, has been leading a drug recovery ministry in churches in Noblesville, Indiana. Serving and caring for hurting people in this manner has more eternal rewards than how many so-called 5-star matches one has had in a rasslin’ ring.
Before and after the time I spent working as a professional wrestling host and play-by-play announcer, I’ve been working practically non-stop in the radio industry. For the last nine years, I’ve been working full-time as an on-air talent and in production for KWVE 107.9, heard throughout Southern California, and our sister Christian radio stations, K-Wave Las Vegas 98.1, KSDW 88.9/San Diego, and KWTH 91.3/Barstow. At different radio stations I’ve worked at, I’ve gotten calls or emails from folks who recognize me as “the wrestling announcer.” My beautiful blonde school teacher wife April tells me that at the bank and the grocery store she goes to, there are employees at both places who are wrestling fans and who have FMW wrestling videos in their collections, and who have given April specific details about my wrestling announcing work…and who want her to bring me with her the next time she visits!
I never said I was the greatest or the biggest name, but I thank God that I was at least able to make it through the casting studios’ doors and onto television screens for viewers across the nation and around the globe, and to at least make money and a career out of it, and believe me, plenty of people would do absolutely anything to make it to at least that level. Thanks and blessings, and may God bless The Wrestling Estate and your unique, solid brand of professional wrestling journalism!
About Author
Speaking of strolls down memory lane…John, I’ve never followed pro wrestling, or I’m sure it’d have known you had become famous! What a trip to see you, out of the blue, like this! Then again, you have been a trip, since we were kids, lol. Good to see you’re doing great. Awesome writing!