On the Mat

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 522, 24 June 1949, Page 10

On the Mat

NNOUNCERS have very distinctive methods of putting across those wrestling bouts to which I never go in person, but which I greatly enjoy per medium of my radio. There is, for instance, an announcer who talks nineteen to the dozen, as though he just couldn’t find enough words to describe all the excitement. His phrases come over in a sort of verbal] shorthand, as "in a stan posish," "he’s got a body-siz on," or "they’re in the cent the ring," and the fast commentary, full of technical details, is unintelligible to the uninitiated. ‘Then there is another announcer whose feelings carry him away to such an extent that he forgets to comment at all, and bursts out with, "Oh, you should see this! My word, (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) this is great! See what’s happening now! Oh, look out!" quite forgetting that the listener has to rely on the ear and not the eye for a comprehensible account of what is going on. My own favourite is Dunedin’s "Whang," who may not be

so explicit in. naming the holds as the first announcer mentioned, or'so excitably vociferous as the second, but whose blasé descriptions of everything from a __ brilliant octopus clamp to-an

illicit rabbit punch are enlivened with a most infectious laugh, and who, more than any other announcer, gives listeners a comfortable feeling of occupying 4 ringside seat without actually paying for it.