Renee Young has been one of the three full-time voices of WWE Raw since September 2018. One of the rising stars of WWE’s commentary team, Young went from being a backstage interviewer to an analyst on commentary and became the first woman to be a full-time commentator in WWE.
It’s unknown how much training she had before making her commentary debut, but Young hasn’t been doing commentary for very long and is no doubt learning to try and improve her craft. Young touched on this during her Regular Girls podcast with Stacey McGunnigle, where she revealed one thing she was told after reviewing her work.
Transcription by 411Mania.
“So I’ve been working each week — I work with Tom Phillips, this week I worked with Vic Joseph — but we’ll go back and watch [and] listen to my commentary on Raw or on a pay-per-view or whatever and like, dissect it,” Young said. “They’ll give me pointers, et cetera, et cetera, and it’s extremely beneficial to me. But yeah, that was kinda the note where they’re like ‘You don’t have to talk as much as you think you need to talk. Maybe just sit back and listen a little bit.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ And that’s like, really no easy task for me. I’m so used to being like, the talker. And keeping the ball afloat. So when I don’t have that ball, to keep it afloat, I think that’s an uncomfortable spot for me and then I end up, just like…diarrhea of the mouth because I don’t have a firm grasp on what’s happening.”
This wasn’t something I particularly noticed from Young compared to everyone else in WWE, but it is useful advice within commentary in general. A lot of times, less is more and the people who know when to sit back at the right times are usually regarded as the best at what they do. In addition, considering Young is in a three person setup, a lot of commentary is not only based on what’s happening on the screen, but reacting to your broadcasting partners on what to say next. It’s just like improv when it comes to listening and reacting, so not talking as much surely helps with that.
That being said, there is a reputation that WWE commentary is and has been over-produced for years. Michael Cole gets a lot of flack for his commentating style but a lot of that is from Vince McMahon yelling in his headset telling him what to say and how to say it all the time. Cole seems to be a popular punching bag for WWE fans, but a lot of that criticism isn’t his fault. For all we know, that’s what’s happening with Young and she’s being overproduced by McMahon. Either way, it seems like Renee Young is fully on-board with her commentary role and is eager to learn and improve.
[411Mania]
