Chapter 36: Selling Like Hot Cakes
Rob sat backstage trying to relax after the hectic workload the weekly show brought to the table. While he wasn’t a backstage worker or supervisor anymore, he wasn’t having an easier time either.
Being on commentary meant, Rob had to pay attention to the show throughout the 90 minutes without any break. He has to be ready to jump in when something goes wrong inside the ring and take away the audience’s attention from the mistake.
Luckily, the new way of commentary by Dallas and Rob did help in this a lot.
Typically, when the live broadcast was happening, it was neither the crowd in front of whom they were wrestling nor the personnel that was overseeing who saw the mistake first.
It would be the audience watching at home. Being given a close seat to the going ons inside the ring, they would be the first to pick up on a botch or call out the mistake.
That was why the commentary team and Control Pit were equipped with monitors to see the action just like the audience at home would see. This way, they would be able to spot the mistake sooner and take necessary action.
The new form of commentary had an added bonus in that it always split the audience’s concentration between watching the wrestling and hearing the on-air rivalry between Dallas and Rob.
As their concentration was already split, either Dallas or Rob could initiate a small spat to tunnel the audience to focus on them particularly and not mind the botch. This was a good advantage to have.
This meant, Rob had an important role to play even when he was off-screen. So, he had to be able to focus for the entire show to do his job when needed. That, in turn, meant he had no leisure time to cool down after a segment. He was constantly at work for the entire 90 minutes.
Now that his first weekly show as a color commentator was over, Rob was able to relax a little and let himself go a bit.
Till now, he wasn’t able to find time to analyze this week’s show from a booker’s perspective. As he went over the women’s segment in the show mentally, Rob had to admit that today’s broadcast was a great success when it came to the women’s division.
The first segment featuring Evelyn and Selena had done its job. It had stoked the fire that was simmering in the audience and now they were eager to see them gear off.