When considering how Joey Styles was treated in terms of commentary, he deserved better treatment than being released from WWE for voicing his honest opinion.
No one likes being fired. We’ve all been there and we often wish we could have had a proper sendoff. However, the world of professional wrestling only seems to do that when someone retires. Otherwise, you get moved to the alumni page on WWE.com and the company acts like you never existed.
In the case of Joey Styles, he was someone who deserved better treatment overall than what he got during his time with WWE. With the announcement of his release from the WWE apparently stemming from some of the answers he gave during a special live Facebook Q and A session. His responses to fan questions apparently left some officials in the company to think “Oh my God!”
More wwe: WrestleMania 33 Match Card Projections
Sure, it’s probably understandable that WWE officials didn’t like his comments about not liking three-man commentary teams or being critical of how Roman Reigns is pushed. But Joey Styles has never been shy to give his honest opinion about different subjects (look at his Twitter account) and we all remember his 2006 shoot promo not only being critical of WWE’s commentary, but how he wasn’t good enough to call Backlash – because it was Backlash, not WrestleMania.
Joey Styles was someone who did a lot for the professional wrestling business. He was the extreme announcer during the 1990s as the voice of Extreme Championship Wrestling. While companies like WWF and WCW were using two to three people on the microphone during matches, Styles did entire pay-per-views and television programs by himself; which is a special talent for any announcer to do any game or match solo.
More from Daily DDT
- It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles
- Tom Lawlor talks MLW return, AEW opportunity, CM Punk’s WWE return and more
- Eddie Kingston stands to gain the most from the AEW Continental Classic
- Trish Stratus on WWE NXT would help elevate that women’s division
- Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline
Style then had a chance to return to ECW when the WWE brought ECW One Night Stand in 2005, followed by a sequel one year later that led to the beginning of the ECW brand. But before the ECW brand was formed, Styles was brought to be the play-by-play man for Raw, which lasted briefly because Vince McMahon was not a fan of Styles’ focus on the moves of the match and wanted a storyteller.
The first few months of ECW’s brand was great, but the WWE decided to replace Styles with Mike Adamle in 2008. It was probably the worst decision ever made, but the WWE really wanted to use the former American Gladiators announcer. In a lot of ways, Adamle was the equivalent of the bodybuilder that McMahon really wanted to be the next world heavyweight champion.
While Adamle continued to struggle in ECW, then on Raw as the announcer and then as the general manager of the red brand, Styles would go become the vice president of WWE’s Digital Media Content. A big part of that was managing the content on WWE.com and he made the site a lot better for fans who were a little smarter than the average viewer – i.e. a feature about the WWE superstars who came from Ring of Honor.
Related Story: Joey Styles Released by WWE
So for the fact that Joey Styles was working with what he was given in the WWE, he should have been allowed to be honest with things that fans asked him. While he could have chosen his wording better, it probably wasn’t worth firing Styles. He deserved to voice his opinion when you consider the roller coaster ride of his career with WWE overall.