Joey Styles

Joey Styles (born Joseph Bonsignore on July 14 1971), is a professional wrestling play-by-play commentator and former professional in the field of advertising sales best known for his work in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). He currently works for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a play-by-play commentator for the revived ECW brand. He worked for its RAW brand (with Jonathan Coachman and Jerry "The King" Lawler) until May 1, 2006, when he quit in a rant about the lack of "wrestling" and his dislike of "Sports Entertainment". Styles is now the lead announcer for ECW on the Sci Fi Channel alongside Tazz. He was also the commentator for the now-defunct promotions XPW and Major League Wrestling.

Career

Extreme Championship Wrestling

Styles was the play-by-play commentator for Extreme Championship Wrestling throughout its existence. He became famous for his vast knowledge of the sport and his catchphrase, "Oh My God!" which he would yell when something dangerous/extreme would happen in (or out of) the ring (which, in ECW, was quite frequent)in sometimes a very high pitched and raspy way, unique to him. He was also the first and remains the only play-by-play commentator to call a live play-by-play broadcast alone with no color commentator on April 13, 1997 at ECW's debut pay-per-view (PPV), ECW Barely Legal.

Before his run in ECW, he was the play-by-play commentator for North American Wrestling Association on SportsChannel America.

World Wrestling Entertainment

One Night Stand

He appeared at Shane Douglas's Hardcore Homecoming event on June 10, 2005 at the ECW Arena. He put aside past conflicts with WWE and agreed to appear at the company's ECW One Night Stand 2005 PPV, which aired on June 12, 2005, two days after Hardcore Homecoming, announcing with Mick Foley, where he began talking trash about Mike Awesome during his match against Masato Tanaka calling him a "Judas" and a "piece of crap" referring to Awesome defecting from ECW to World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

Monday Night RAW

On November 1, 2005 he made an appearance at World Wrestling Entertainment's Taboo Tuesday PPV. Styles was brought in to fill-in for Jonathan Coachman as Coachman had a match against Batista. Joey joined WWE's RAW as a play-by-play announcer on November 7, 2005.

On December 4, 2005, it was confirmed by WWE.com that Joey signed a five-year contract to be the official play-by-play commentator for RAW, in an earlier interview done by WWE.com, he mentioned that becoming the voice of RAW would be a dream come true for him. Styles has also stated that calling WrestleMania to be one of his life long dreams growing up.

However, despite being the lead announcer for RAW, it was announced that he would not provide commentary for WrestleMania 22, which instead featured Jim Ross calling the matches for RAW. Styles learned he would not be announcing at WrestleMania 22 when he arrived on RAW on March 27, 2006. The reason for Styles not calling the event is that Vince McMahon supposedly dislikes his style of play-by-play announcing, wanting a "lead storyteller" instead. Jim Ross had a similar problem when he first joined the WWE, and Styles has said that Ross has been helping him to adapt to the WWE style of commentary.

Wrestlemania Snub

However, Joey Styles was present at WrestleMania 22, losing his "Wrestlemania virginity" as he put it, calling the Hardcore Match between Mick Foley and Edge. This was apparently Styles' idea, as he was anxious to get on the show ^*.

The Shoot

On the May 1, 2006 edition of RAW, Styles announced he was quitting by delivering a hard-hitting shoot promo, in which he bashed Vince McMahon, WWE, sports entertainment, and the fact that people "buy into this crap". To further the storyline, his profile was removed from both the WWE RAW superstars section and the ECW One Night Stand subsite.

//en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joey_Styles Transcript of May 1st RAW Shoot

The new ECW

Styles remained under contract with WWE after he quit Raw, making his next apperance at WWE vs. ECW Head to Head and did commentary with Tazz, he announced that Paul Heyman had put him back as commentator of the new ECW. He now commentates for ECW Weekly Show as well as for ECW One Night Stand 2006 on June 11th 2006 (and most likely other ECW Pay Per Views).

Styles

Styles has a unique style of commentating that lets him be able to break kayfabe at some points to express his innermost feelings about a wrestler or a match, good or bad. He is known for putting over wrestlers without being told to by "higher-ups". This also allows his commentating flow to be more fluent at times, and why many believe that Styles is one of the more honest play-by-play men in the business.

His most telling characteristic is his voice. For the most part, he calls a match in his normal calm, collected voice. However, once exciting or shocking events occur during the match, he begins to screech and speak at a rapid pace, usually to yell "Oh, my God!," when a dangerous spot is executed successfully. There is no known explanation to this day as to why Styles has that unique yelling voice, as it is presumably something that Styles has no control over, or it may be his excesive sense of humor showing through. This was heard frequently in ECW. However, in the WWE, he has been told not to yell as much. On a few occasions he has screamed in his classic form in the WWE:

During ECW One Night Stand 2005, when former ECW divas Francine Fournier and Beulah McGillicutty fought in the middle of the main event, The Dudley Boyz vs. The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer, in which Styles yelled "Catfight! Catfight!" Styles repeated this phrase during ECW One Night Stand 2006 when Beulah McGillicutty attacked Lita during their three-person tag match, Beulah's partners being Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer, Lita's being Edge and Mick Foley.
A small sampling came on a November RAW, in which Shelton Benjamin went against Kurt Angle (now on the ECW brand). It was during this time that Angle's storyline included Daivari as his special guest referee for his matches. During the end of the match, Benjamin rolled Angle up, but Daivari refused to count the three count. Instead, he tipped Benjamin over so Angle was instead the one executing the pinfall, and made a fast three count. This prompted Joey to go "What the hell was that?! ...Aw, come on!!" (even though there might have been more, it was not heard due to censoring because of an unrelated storyline of Kurt Angle demanding that the fans be censored anytime they chanted "You Suck," as the bleeps had censored everything, including the commentary).
During the 2005 Survivor Series, Joey yelled "Oh my God!" during a spot in the Ric Flair vs. Triple H Last Man Standing Match, when Ric Flair reversed Triple H's Pedigree finishing manuver that was to go through the Spanish announcer's table into a back body drop that went into the RAW commentating table.
At WrestleMania 22, during the Hardcore match between Mick Foley and Edge, Styles yelled "Oh my God!" with extreme emphasis when Edge speared Foley off the ring apron and through a flaming table.
During an ECW tag team match on PPV November to Remember (??) featuring Terry Funk, Funk was thrown out of the ring onto a table that was supposed to break upon impact. When the table didn't break, Funk surreally got up and stood up on the table, screamed loudly, and jumped, back first into the table, unaided, breaking it and crashing to the ground. Styles let out his most humorous "Oh my God" to date, saying, "Did Terry Funk just throw himself through a table?!...Oh my God."

It's interesting to note that on the night when Joey Styles "quit" RAW, the screeching voice was poked fun at, by Edge, the Spirit Squad, and finally by Jerry Lawler (by mocking the screeching "Oh my God" quote), Lawler being the person in the storyline ending up setting Joey Styles off, thereby beginning the now infamous segment.

Trivia

Prior to signing with the WWE, Joey Styles was the co-owner of the wrestling news website, 1Wrestling.com
Born on the same day as wrestler Brother Ray.
The man who was originally going to be the commentator for ECW was Mick Karch. When Paul Heyman gained control within the company, one of his first moves was to give the job to Joey Styles.
Joey Styles still owns the former ECW website domain, ECWWrestling.com
He used to work as an intern for the magazine, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, before becoming the commentator for ECW.
Joey Styles is also the man who started calling Kurt Angle the "Wrestling Machine," and has recently started calling Umaga the "Samoan Smashing Machine," which may be a reference to "Samoan Submission Machine," TNA's nickname for Samoa Joe.
Before accepting the job to become the announcer on RAW to replace Jim Ross, Joey Styles was asked by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to become an announcer for them, but Styles refused the offer due to his job at the time. Ironically, the person that the WWE had wanted to replace Jim Ross before Styles was hired was UFC announcer Mike Goldberg, but Goldberg refused the offer due to not having any knowledge of pro wrestling and has gone on record as never having liked pro wrestling in the first place.
Joey Styles also appeared in the video game ECW Hardcore Revolution as a hidden character. Styles performed his character's finishing move The Celestial Splash himself and it was motion captured.

Accomplishments

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

1994 Best Television Announcer
1995 Best Television Announcer
1996 Best Television Announcer

External links

WWE Profile

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