Jim Ross Responds to Criticism of His NJPW Commentary

Jim Ross took a beating online after his commentary at the NJPW G1 Special in USA last weekend, with lots of people pointing out that he called wrestlers by the wrong names a few times and seemed to only be casually familiar with the roster.

A lot of people also criticized JR’s partner Josh Barnett, including the Young Bucks, who felt like Barnett was burying them on commentary because he has previously publicly said that he doesn’t like their style of wrestling. Barnett was pretty bad and really just sucked the life out of a lot of the matches.

NJPW’s Toma Tonga and Kenny Omega had this to say:

Commentating sucked at the #G1Special..at least @realkevinkelly knows the storylines and OUR F#CKING NAMES

— 'Bad Boy' Tama Tonga (@Tama_Tonga) July 8, 2017

Can't wait to hear these guys again on @njpwworld . Very much appreciate their unbiased opinions. https://t.co/anShmTnhhO

— Kenny Omega (@KennyOmegamanX) July 8, 2017

Jim Ross responded to the criticism in an interview with Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling:

“It is a real ambitious undertaking for the AXS TV folks who do do MMA 40 days a year (40 weeks a year on Friday night) or something like that but they had never done pro wrestling. So we had a brand new crew that had no and most essentially no experience whatsoever in pro wrestling. I thought that we rallied together and came through with an excellent effort, the desire and the will to be good was there. I had some flub ups and was asking which one is Jay (of The Briscoe Brothers) and which one is which and God almighty the guy we asked was one of the ringside guys and Josh Barnett and I said which one is which and one of the guys said: “Well, ( I can’t remember Mark or Jay) doesn’t have any front teeth.” I said (okay) that doesn’t help me unless you are going to be shooting their smile, give me something. I got hammered on social media because I made that mistake and people forget that we are human and we are doing a live television show.”

“I wish we did not have those errors but I can tell you this. When I saw the Briscoes on Sunday I apologized to both of them for screwing that up and I took complete responsibility for it even though I got bad information (you know) I own it. It is my deal and so I apologized to those guys because I have great respect for their work and I always have so I wish we had not done that. I don’t live this product. Kevin Kelly and Don Callus are there, they live it all the time and they were there in the building doing some stuff but I think that people will see that our second show was much more cleaner and much smoother than was our first show. Of course the second show also was highlighted by the United States title tournament but I thought that the final match with Omega and Ishii was absolutely tremendous. The Young Bucks had a real good match on that second night with Roppongi Vice and it ended up being Roppongi Vice’s apparent last match as a team. I was very and really happy that I had the chance to do two live shows and not in voice overs but actually sitting in the arena, sitting at ringside and being able to do what I enjoy doing more than anything or any other phase of the wrestling business and that is do live commentary.”