By Greg Parks, PWTorch Contributor

Some people are just not cut out for the sports entertainment business. For Mike Adamle and WWE, they had to find that out the hard way.

Adamle was best remembered by mainstream fans as being one-half of the announce team on the original American Gladiators, some 15-20 years ago. Since then, he has been working mostly in the Chicago area, doing radio and TV, as well as having a stint seven years ago as an announcer for the XFL. He was hired, seemingly out of the blue, by WWE last January. He does have a background in pro sports, having played for the Chicago Bears in the NFL as well as a sports anchor on local Chicago TV.

His run in WWE was a tumultuous one: From his debut where he mis-pronounced Jeff Hardy's name, to his awkward, cue card-like speaking during his days as backstage interviewer, to his embarrassing time as ECW play-by-play man, Adamle, sadly, will be remembered as a bomb as far as experiments go.

Adamle removed himself from his on-air general manager position on Raw a week ago. In a fitting end, Adamle seemed to lose his place once again in front of the live crowd, visibly having trouble remembering his lines. That was the main problem with Adamle: In front of a live crowd, he couldn't keep things straight. It didn't help that for the first few months, WWE had him explain complicated storylines or match stipulations on the show. I believe that Adamle could've pulled this gig off if WWE kept him solely doing pre-tapes backstage as general manager. Inevitably, he'd have to make appearances in front of live crowds though, and that's where things would get dicey again.

Perhaps keeping him in backstage segments wouldn't have even helped. When Adamle kept butchering names of wrestlers and especially after his stint as ECW play-by-play commentator, no fan in his right mind could take Adamle seriously in the position of general manager. How could you believe that a man with little to no pro wrestling knowledge was put in charge of WWE's flagship show? To the average viewer, that simply doesn't make sense.

Pro wrestling fans are a funny bunch; they don't like anyone coming into the business who they feel doesn't take things seriously, especially someone who has had success in other entertainment or sports fields. Adamle drew the ire of fans his first day on the job, mis-pronouncing Hardy's name live on Pay-Per-View at the Royal Rumble. Fans, sensing he was just another celebrity thinking they could come into the wrestling business and make it easily, never accepted him.

Take Floyd Mayweather as another example. WWE had anticipated having Mayweather as the face against Big Show at WrestleMania. After his appearance at No Way Out, things were on track for that very plan. However, once fans got wind that this wasn't going to be a one-time appearance, and that he was actually going to be in a match against a "real"wrestler, fans turned him into a heel. Sure, his entourage and mic skills were that of a heel, but the fans never fully accepted him as a face, despite WWE's efforts.

To be in Adamle's position, you need to know how to act and react, as well as how to use verbiage, pauses, etc. during interviews. Adamle, trained as a radio and TV announcer, didn't seem to have these skills. Talking in front of fans and getting across storylines as well as interacting with entertainers backstage requires more than people seem to think, both inside WWE and outside. I can't speak for how much training Adamle was getting on-the-job by agents or veterans backstage, but plain and simply, he wasn't improving.

Adamle had his moments, though. Two specifically that I remember include Adamle's reasoning for Kane needing to show him what was in the bag he was carrying around and his round-about-way of explaining that with school starting up, kids may be start bringing bags like that into school and scaring teachers, and as Adamle said, "that's just bad business." In what may have been Adamle's final appearance, he knocked it out of the park in talking to Stephanie McMahon backstage at Raw after he "quit." He really showed passion and emotion in that short segment.

Mike Adamle shouldn't be shouldered with all the blame of his lackluster run as GM; WWE creative dropped the ball in writing the Adamle character. They had so many angles to take, from a bumbling, Michael Scott-like character who seems oblivious to everything going on around him and is generally an idiot, but somehow finds ways to be successful; to an idiot savant-like character who perhaps just makes it seem like he doesn't know what's going on but is secretly a genius; to a likeable guy who when pushed into a wall can be a master manipulator; or even just a straight, comedically inept character. So many angles to take with Adamle, but WWE didn't do any of that. In fact, the character didn't evolve at all in his run as GM (unless you count the instilling of the "Adamle Originals") until he quit, saying he had become everything he didn't want in slapping Randy Orton two weeks ago. WWE seemed to want to just put him out there and have him get over on his own merits; problem was, his own merits were simply not enough to give him over. For a writer who loves to write comedy, I expected better from Brian Gewirtz's crew in terms of making Adamle three-dimensional.

Where do they go with Mike Adamle from here? With their announcement of cutting $20 million from the budget, WWE would be better off letting Adamle loose, what with his hefty salary and all. But does he still have some value as an on-air character? WWE could try to install him back as a play-by-play man or a backstage interviewer. Todd Grisham has replaced Adamle quite serviceably on ECW, leaving no other openings on the announce teams. He could go back to backstage interviewing, taking Grisham's role on Raw and having Grisham solely work on ECW. That would make more sense from a brand-split stand-point. Those seem to be the only three options at this point.

Hopefully, the Adamle failure will reverberate all the way to Vince McMahon himself. Vince has long been a proponent of bringing in non-wrestling announcers, broadcasters from the sports or entertainment field, to announce his product. They would be much easier to mold into Vince's vision of HIS way of calling a pro wrestling match, rather than having to break down a pro wrestling announcer, and build him back up in his image. The Adamle situation is a failure of that way of thinking, on a grand level. But Vince's desperation to be accepted as "mainstream" is just over-the-top at this point, especially as he continues to crack down on announcers and what they are and aren't allowed to say/talk about. And what broadcaster in their right mind would come to WWE, especially if they've heard the horror stories about Vince's attitudes toward the announcers during the broadcasts.

In the end, I feel bad for Mike Adamle. While he shoulders the blame for being unprepared on the air and seemingly not improving much in terms of wrestling knowledge as the weeks went on, I do blame WWE for putting him in the announce position too soon. Plain and simply, WWE was irresponsible in doing so. It made the entire broadcast and WWE in particular come off as bush league and unprofessional. Perhaps they didn't know to the extent Adamle was not "ready for prime time," but that blame falls on WWE. They should know and have been prepping Adamle for his debut, and someone should have had to sign off on putting him on air if they were content that he could pull it off. I'm not exactly sure how things went down in terms of how he was placed in that role, other than reading that it was longtime McMahon ally and NBC big-wig Dick Ebersol who suggested to McMahon that he bring in Adamle.

As general manager of Raw, the problem that plagued him as play-by-play man continued: the lack of ability to get over the points he needed to get over in a convincing fashion. WWE seemed to hope that he would improve, but it didn't happen, at least well enough for him to pull the role off. Luckily, no one in the world of real sports keeps a close tab on WWE, so his disastrous run in WWE shouldn't affect his future sports announcing career (plus he's had plenty of high-profile gigs before WWE, enough to make people forget about his latest run). Adamle seems like a nice guy who was simply in the wrong business.

Greg Parks is a long-time PWTorch.com contributor who currently covers Smackdown every Friday night live as it airs. He also participates in a post-Raw audio show with James Caldwell every-other week. His PDF bonus column appears in every edition of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter.

WWE News Flashback: Mike Adamle the new G.M. of Raw: Controversial announcer shifted off of ECW announcing duties

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