STATUS: I think McLane is supposed to be a face, considering he always goes way over the top praising the faces in his commentary. However, constant jokes are made about his cheapness, and every time a heel threatens or attacks him, the crowd loves it. I guess he wants to have it both ways. So call him a "deliberately dislikeable face", I suppose.
WRESTLING: Thankfully, he doesn't wrestle, although he does get tossed out of the ring fairly regularly. One of these trips out of the ring led to a classic McLane quote. "I've been blinded...but I can see what's going on on the WOWVision!" Huh??????
CHARACTER: McLane is an awful actor. Whenever he is trying to make a point on commentary, he overdoes it so much that it's like painfully pounding it into your skull. I can't even think of specific examples, 'cause it happens every episode. When he's not doing that, he is usually saying things like "There's always something with you, Lana Star." You know that person who always manages to say the one thing that totally kills a decent conversation? He's that guy. Oh, and he yells "FANS! LOG INTO WOWE.COM!!!!" at really weird moments.
LOOKS: I'm not really qualified to judge, but I can't imagine the guy is good looking by most people's standards.
COMMENTS: McLane is on his third women's wrestling federation now, so you have to give him credit for determination, and for sticking to the vision that presumably is shared by readers of this page. You also have to give him credit for picking out the WOW women, who are an exceptional group of skilled and attractive athletes, and for keeping things running week to week. WOW is a product with a ton of potential -- not only potential to entertain, but potential to help the cause of women's sports in general. So I am thrilled to give McLane props for all that.
But he simply should not be announcing matches. He doesn't even speak a recognizable brand of English half the time, and he melodramaticizes everything to such an extent that he can't plausibly get the angles over. He also doesn't know much of anything about technical wrestling or the names of moves: most of his calls are "OHHH MYYY!!!" or "DID YOU SEE THAT!!!"
And, he should not be nearly as much a focus of the non-match action as he is. For one thing, half of the words out of his mouth are "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERRRRE TODAYYYYY!!", spoken to any interfering wrestler. Given the amount of interference that takes place in WOW, this gets real old real fast, not to mention being corny in the first place. As an announcer/interviewer, McLane also gets further opportunities to twist the language, saying strange things such as, "You've got no right, Thug - no right to be here, and I dare you to be showing this on WOWVision." He can't act, and he's not very articulate...sorry, David, we can't all be good at everything.
To sum up, the show should be about the wrestlers interacting with each other, not the wrestlers interacting with McLane. McLane should appear in the occasional skit as "our cheap boss", and that should be the extent of his on-camera involvement (kinda like what Mick Foley did as WWF Commissioner). On the business side, David needs to hire more talented producers, editors, and writers.
2/4/01 (PPV):
- Two classic McLane-isms in the first few minutes of the biggest Pay-Per-View
of his life. First, he tells us that "history will be make-ed" at
this event. Not "made"... make-ed. Amazing. Then, a few minutes later,
we're told that in the haircut match, "someone's going to get their head
shaved completely off." Hoo boy. Talk about hanging yourself with a custom-fit
noose...
2/18/01 (show #20):
- McLane continues to sound like an 8-year-old overenthusiastic WOW fan. Some
great quotes this week:
"Maybe Jungle Grrrl is trying to defeat Jane Blond so she can be the Queen
of England? We'll find out."
On the JG/Beckie PPV match: "They were fighting for the title of Queen
of the Jungle Grrrl."
"Riot took out Danger...now she's a dangerous riot."
Strangely enough, his "post-PPV" interview with Terri Gold was understated and effective.
2/25/01 (show #21):
- Anyone one else suspect this whole angle with LA Lakers owner Jeannie Buss
is going to go absolutely nowhere?