What’s wrong with just letting the matches play out as-is? Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of good commentators out there that I don’t mind listening to at all, but those commentators are few and far in between. Putting a guy on to commentate “just because” is a bad idea to me, because if the person talking over the match isn’t particularly insightful or informative (or at least funny) about the game… I find myself hovering over the mute button.
I would say its just an option. Like you said you can always mute it, and what else is the alternative do you want to listen to the sounds of the game. Its just nice that people who run these streams give that extra option regardless of whether it is good or not.
And like you said you can always mute it!
FG streams need good commentary, 100% of the time.
I cannot simply watch a series of matches by themselves - fighting games are inherently boring as fuck when I’m spectating. I’m a person who needs something going on the background in order to focus. In a similar way people have the TV going while they do chores, or listen to music while they’re studying, or even listening to music while they play - I have to have commentary to pay attention to what’s happening.
EDIT: Actually yes, Osbjorn - I would rather prefer the option to simply turn off commentary instead of muting. Background music exists for a reason.
The only time I’ve turned off commentary was during Marvel finals at EVO this year. Bad commentary is actually more likely to make me stop watching rather than hit mute.
The problem is that 90% of commentators for fighting games are horrible…otherwise I agree.
Too many of them trying to ride on hype words/phrases, and not enough of them actually commentating the matches.
There are only four great commentators:
Ultrachen (too godly to be counted separate)
S Kill
Rockefeller, and
Yipes.
Honourable mention to Spooky.
Commentating classes need to become a thing and they need to become manditory for all stream commentators.
Funny how the OP has an avatar of Yipes…because I partly blame him for why commentary today is horrible.
People may give you heat for this, but i kind of agree, not so much with Yipes himself though, but the fact that people try to hard to imitate him and it just doesn’t work.
You cant blame someone for others trying to be him.
If only Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler would be commentating streams it would have been a very awesome experience. 
I think there should always be commentary but choose your commentators wisely. If you have no commentary, its just fighting that’s going on and I feel that streaming is much more than just seeing something but also hearing the smarts about it. You obviously need to have people that know the game but still have a sense of humor to keep things interesting.
Unfortunate confession, but I’ve been riding RayRay’s commentary since I heard him for an extended time on the T13 stream, so good. He has a very good natural ability I would say, to keeping it natural and informative. Honestly if Yipes kept it as Informative as he does hype/entertaining, I think him and Ray would make a good ass marvel commentating team.
EDIT: 2 video examples
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[media=youtube]gxkUOqwi7vQ[/media]
Yipes keeps it informative enough. That guy knows more shit about the game than any commentator I’ve heard. Specially if you have one of his characters on screen.
Somebody is seriously missing from that list. You know who he is.
(Hint: it’s not SkiSonic)
Chris Hu?
Do they need commentary all the time? No of course not, people have been watching matches since the beginning of time without commentary so it really isn’t needed.
Is it nice to have? Most definitely, especially when the commentator is smart, funny, etc etc. The problem is that people who shouldn’t commentate are commentating, which is irritating and not very fun to listen too. It also pisses me off when commentators, commentate a game they hate, if you hate it that much just let someone else do it. Got damn.
Nuki is missing there.
Justin wong and Chrome alchemist are also missing
You know you just asked for two contradictory things, unless there is a room stocked with commentators, right?
You don’t want bad commentators but you also want someone who doesn’t like the game to get off the mic, who are they passing things off to if there is no one who likes the game who is also skilled at commentating. Unless you are suggesting a stream with spordical sections of dead air when no one who meets both of those criterion is available.
Maybe we should have Morgan Freeman commentating.