It's official. Mick Foley will be replacing Jonathan Coachman as a member of the SmackDown announce team beginning tonight at Backlash. This can only mean nothing but fantastic news. Granted, Foley is not an announcing genius like Jim Ross, he's still tons of fun better than The Coach. And that's about as nice as I'm going to be when regarding The Coach's commentary skills. Almost as bad and annoying as Don West, really. I refuse to talk about the horror that is Mike Adamle's commentary at the moment.
Now, on to brighter things. Mick Foley announcing SmackDown with Michael Cole. Cole isn't perfect, I know. He's acceptable, in my opinion. Could be better, but has been worse in the past. Cole generally knows what to do and how to get by. When paired with great announcers, it's obvious who is the weaker man on commentary. When paired with the right announcers, he and his partner can help further enhance a great match with good commentary. Which was why he and Tazz did so well during those years they announced SmackDown together. It also helped that they got to announce some top notch matches during the period Paul Heyman was booking, but Cole was able to hang in there.
Cole and Coach was just a bad combination. Coach did not compliment Cole very well and the two ended up making SmackDown hard to watch because we had to deal with their commentary. My hope is that Foley doesn't end up doing the same. Though Foley is a much better person to listen to than Coach, even if he's hardly the ideal commentator in wrestling. As long as Cole and Foley compliment one another when they announce, this will prove to be a good enough partnership that will at least bring Cole near the level he was at with Tazz.

