Joel Gertner

Joel Gertner is an American professional wrestling announcer, color commentator, and manager. He is best known for his appearances with Extreme Championship Wrestling from 1995 to 2001. Gertner debuted in professional wrestling in 1992 at the age of 17, making appearances at a local wrestling federation as a heel announcer under the nickname "Joey Jaguar". He would threaten the wrestlers and usually get beat up for his actions. Gertner attended Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, New York and started attending Cornell University in 1993. After his professional wrestling bookings started to interfere with his schoolwork, he dropped out of Cornell in the spring of 1996. Gertner was one year short of a bachelor's degree. Gertner also worked for the Cornell radio station. Gertner began working for the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling as a ring announcer in the summer of 1995. Soon after, Shane Douglas influenced Gertner to become a heel and Gertner started taunting and making fun of the babyface wrestlers during their introduction and as a result, the face wrestlers usually made Gertner pay for his insults. He was then given the position of a color commentator by Taz and Bill Alfonso to counterbalance the influence of announcer Joey Styles, who they regarded as being biased against them. He also hosted a segment on ECW's weekly television program entitled Gertner Vision. During this time, Gertner became popular with the fans for his…