With the resurgence of Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross in All Elite Wrestling, Steve Cook has his Top 5 Announcers that need to come back!

2019 & 2020 have seen the unexpected return to pro wrestling of some announcers that helped shape the childhood of those of us that grew up in the 1980s & 1990s. The trend started with Tony Schiavone joining All Elite Wrestling as part of their announce team. Schiavone had been absent from regular pro wrestling work since WCW closed in 2001, and from all accounts was happy outside the business until the podcasting bug bit.

The NWA got into the act by bringing in former WWF announcer Sean Mooney. Mooney left the WWF in 1993 and currently works as an anchor/reporter for KVOA in Tuscon, Arizona. He had made some random WWE appearances in recent years, got into the podcasting game, and was part of the All In broadcast, where he interviewed NWA Worlds Champion Nick Aldis. Fortunately, the NWA schedule makes it convenient for Mooney to dabble in both news & wrestling.

One has to wonder…if Mooney & Schiavone can re-emerge from the ashes of wrestling yesteryear to become important cogs in the machine again, who else might be on the horizon? Today, we take a look at the Top 5 Announcers that need to come back.

5. David Crockett

Those of you that remember watching World Championship Wrestling on Saturday night at 6:05 will remember David as one of the voices of the program. His excitable nature added to many feuds & angles. He wasn’t known as a great play by play announcer, but he never failed to add some emotion to the proceedings. AEW already has one of Jim Crockett Promotions’ top announcers, so one wonders when David will be joining his buddy Tony on the air.

4. Craig DeGeorge

Longtime WWF/WWE viewers have surely noticed how the company tends to run through certain types of announcers. One announcer will be replaced with another that looks & talks very similarly. The aforementioned Mooney replaced Craig DeGeorge, who countless people have noted is very similar to Mooney in style & appearance. I thought Mooney was an upgrade, but DeGeorge has had a successful career in his own right since leaving the WWF in 1988. He’s spent most of his time in the Miami area, working for the Miami Marlins & Florida Panthers’ broadcasting operations over the past couple of decades. He even did some XFL coverage on TNN, so a comeback to WWE probably isn’t out of the question.

3. Joel Gertner

The Quintessential Studmuffin was an entertaining part of ECW television as a ring announcer, manager for the Dudley Boyz or as a color commentator alongside Joey Styles. He was also ridiculously young while all this was going on, he’s only 45 years old here in 2020 & should have plenty of time left to contribute behind the microphone. Now, his particular style of verbiage might not fly on this day & age’s wrestling programming, but the dude went to Cornell University so he’s probably smart enough to figure something out.

2. Steve McMichael

WCW hyped that they were going to have an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster join them for the debut of WCW Monday Nitro. I think the story ended up being that Mongo had been nominated for a local Sports Emmy or something like that, but in any event we got Mongo McMichael and his dog Pepe on commentary for the first several months of Nitro’s existence before McMichael transitioned into in-ring competition. Mongo always had a unique personality though, and one can’t deny that it would be fun to see McMichael back on national television with a live microphone again.

1. Todd Pettengill

Vince McMahon had a bit of a thing for hiring NYC radio personalities back in the mid 1990s. Rob Bartlett’s stint on Monday Night Raw didn’t go so well, but Pettengill managed to last several years hosting various WWF studio shows, hosting Slammy Award events & doing the occasional impression. He recommended Michael Cole to replace him in 1997, so you can either thank or blame him for that. Todd randomly popped up doing TNA Impact voiceovers when the show aired on Fox Sports Net in 2004, and then randomly popped up in 2013 to host an In Your House compliation DVD for WWE. So we’re about due for another random Pettengill appearance, right?