Episode #283 of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling welcomes back WWE Hall of Famer and the greatest pro wrestling announcer of all time, “Good Ol’ JR” Jim Ross. In today’s episode JR responds to critics of his recent New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Special commentary by simply explaining the art of live television. Speaking with Chad and John Poz, JR details the entire week of events leading up to the HUGE two night spectacular and his disappointment with the entire social media backlash to his mistakes made during the live broadcast. JR also gives the audience an inside look at his upcoming WWE schedule and what he expects out of the WWE Networkspecials he will be apart of.
You can also catch JR alongside fellow WWE Hall of Famer and former broadcast colleague at the ICONS of Wrestling Convention in Philadelphia, PA on 8/12/17 at the 2300 Arena (formerly the ECW Arena) from 10am-2pm. Details can be found here. The full episode can be downloaded at this link.
- Jim Ross On His Return To WWE, Who Wanted Him Back, Staying In Contact
The return to WWE:
“I had never stopped communicating with WWE and the WWE had never stopped communicating with me. Basically, I was in contact with Vince regularly because we are friends and are still friends and if I saw something on TV that I liked then I might send him a text. Kevin Dunn and I are friends from OU football because he is an OU football fan and a lot of people don’t know that so that was always our link. Triple H was a guy that I signed and he’s done pretty well for himself like a lot of guys that we were fortunate enough to get under contract and I had just moved on because they didn’t have a spot for me at that point in time and I thought that was cool because I had plenty of work to do. I really reinvented myself and I had plenty of projects to work on. My wife (God bless her) wanted me to go back to the “home team” as she called it.”
Who was the catalyst behind bringing him back:
“Kevin Dunn and working through Vince was very instrumental in me coming back. It was the Friday night before WrestleMania and this was a week after my wife got killed that I signed my contract. They were negotiating with my manager Barry Bloom (who represents a lot of guys like Goldberg, Jericho and Foley I think) but we got a deal done and I signed the contract on Friday night, got it notarized and I think it was on Saturday before WrestleMania that I heard Vince wanted me to work a match.”
“I went there on Saturday and found out they wanted me to work the Undertaker’s match and by the way it is going on last. I was very honored that Vince had picked me to call that match with Cole and JBL and it was a great way to get put back on the team and we kept it under wraps as best we could because there are so many leaks and guys calling me asking if I can give them a story and can you give me the scoop and it got to be ridiculous. The wrestling websites and guys that have podcasts would say that I’ve got to have a story and what is the deal. I didn’t answer those calls and didn’t want to feed that monster. Let somebody else feed it because I know there are plenty of other guys that love to do that but it wouldn’t be me. The whole thing was a good healthy negotiation and the biggest aspect of the negotiations believe it or not was not the money because WWE stepped up big time on the money but it was my other obligations that I had on going like my Fox Sports contract, my AXS TV contract and my book was in the process of being written. Those were the business issues that needed to be worked through and they were. They were all satisfied to everybody’s level of comfort.”
What is his future outside of WWE looking like and does he have to be exclusive to WWE:
“With social media like it is and everybody sensibilities like they are, the last thing I want to do is overstay my welcome and be an embarrassment to my body of work. I am not going to let that happen. I plan on being a WWE guy for the duration and in a perfect world and if I was allowed to do it and I don’t know that I am not or I am, I would love to be able to continue my AXS TV work because I think it keeps me sharp, allows me to call a lot of matches, it is a couple of days a month in L.A. (which is not a bad place to hang out) and I hope I can continue to do both. But the WWE is always going to be in my professional life and personal life quite frankly.”
