Must-Listen Audio: Jim Ross Talks Russo & McMahon, More

Jim Ross did a new interview with Ring Rust Radio. Check out the highlights and the interview below:

On if his perspective on the wrestling business has changed: “Well, I don’t watch as much or religiously as I used to. I’m more dependent now on my DVR rather than watching live. I try to watch as much as I feel I need to so I can maintain my accuracy and have a valid opinion for my podcast. I feel obligated to watch as much product as I can so that the Ross Report is accurate and I can give valid opinions on things I have seen. If I told you I watch just as much as I always did and was just as excited as I was when I was working in it, I would be less then truthful. I miss game day and a lot of my friends, the adrenaline rush with a live crowd. I certainly do not miss the travel in a non-seasonal business. It’s a mixed bag. I’m still a fan. I’m not bitter or angry; just busy. I just don’t have the time to make sure I’m watching a show live like I probably would when I was working in WWE.”

On which signing he’s most proud of: “Well, it’s a difficult question. You’re essentially asking someone to select their favorite child. I think the biggest steal that we got was signing Stone Cold Steve Austin. Vince didn’t really have any familiarity with him, but I did when we worked together at WCW. When he was available and healthy after a short run in ECW,I thought that was a big get and a steal. The biggest overachiever I hired was Mick Foley. He was another guyWWE did not want. I finally through dog named salesmanship, convinced Vince to give him a try. We were running out of heels for Undertaker to work with at the time. It’s very challenging when you have a seven foot babyface to selectively match him up with heels to work with. Mick and Undertaker knew each other from previous promotions. Undertaker thought it was a good idea to bring Mick in.

“The guy that’s gone on to obviously become the biggest star of the group as it relates to his movie work and notoriety around the world is Dwayne Johnson. We had a good run there with him. Several classes were good. I saw Heyman talk about the class of 2002 on Raw Monday and that was one of our better groups with Batista,Cena, Orton and Brock. I pride myself in the fact that we were diligent in finding people, recruiting and coaching up people. We had a great staff with great instructors and great scouts. It was a total team effort. I felt very honored that I got to facilitate and open the door for some of those guys to live their dreams. It was a lot of fun.”

Brandon Galvin: You’ve always been credited with having a fantastic eye for talent and your track record in that role speaks for itself. I’m sure you can understand how confusing it is for fans to hear people in a company talking about wrestlers like Steve Austin, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro and other fan-favorites not being seen as top-tier talents. Is it possible for you to give us some insight into the decision-making of a company and why a wrestler fans deem as a top-tier talent may not be viewed in the same light?

On how talent that fans are getting behind may not be seen as top-tier talent: “Well, it’s real difficult for me to relate to management now since I’m long gone from the WWE. I don’t know how they manage their day-to-day or how their meetings are. I had a very unique relationship with Vince back when I was hiring talent. I was talking to J.J. Dillon, who is coming up on my podcast, he would get tapes and recommendations from talent, but he always had to go through Vince. When I took over for J.J., Vince wanted me to retool and redesign the talent relations department. One of the things I had to have to make it better, in my opinion, was his trust. That my judgment and seeing talents was viable. I hired talents that Vince had never seen and he trusted me. They were my responsibility and they were on my watch. I can’t really tell you what’s going on there now. You gotta believe that WWE listens. They don’t do my ideas so they don’t listen. Well, we don’t know what they are planning next month, week, Monday, Sunday, well I don’t anyways.

“At the end of the day, the cream will rise to the top. The fans will steer the course and support their favorites. The business in general, is in a near crisis situation when it comes to have an adequate amount of skilled main event talent depth. There is skilled main event talent no question, but the depth issue is startling. I think fans right now are ready for something new. Some of the guys you mentioned, I believe, have significant potential to be main event stars. They have to be given the ball and they gotta be built. There is a process you have to go through, commitments gotta be made by the company, long-term planning in effect and they have to have confidence in the talent. There are other issues you and I are not aware of. There could be issues internally that within the company that for whatever reason they don’t have confidence in the talent. Maybe those reason are kept private for confidentiality reasons or legal reasons or whatever. The issue is that I’d rather look at the glass half full. Life is too challenging to go through wondering and bitching and moaning about this that and the other.

“If the guy steers the course, and they prove themselves as good locker room leaders and good members of the team, improve their skill set, and add things to their game, then they have a chance to move up the ladder to the main event level and make more money. For some guys it comes late, some guys it comes easy, it will come if it’s meant to be. There’s no magic formula or secret clandestine meetings. For God’s sake, the WWE is not so aloof that they are going to say, “Well we’re going to do this because we like it and we don’t care what our customer’s like”. That thought is just so immature and so stupid for anyone to think that. There are some fans that reach out to me on Twitter that do think that. They think that the WWE is so omnipotent that they can do whatever they want whether you like it or not. Where would be the advantage to doing that? There is none. So I can’t answer your question but at least I can give you a little background on it.”

Donald Wood: As one of the top play-by-play announcers in wrestling history, you have worked next to several of the most entertaining color commentators the business has ever seen. If you could commentate one final wrestling match with any color commentator of your choice, who would it be and why?

On if he could call one more match with any color commentator, who he would choose: “Oh gosh, you know I don’t know. That’s another tough one. No matter what I say, that’s the thing about these interviews; whatever I say is gonna be dissected. I wrote a blog today about these rumors about me and New Japan. But no matter what I say, some people are going to read into it what they choose. My longest tenured run was with Jerry Lawler. We could go back to work tomorrow, probably call any sport or entity, and be entertaining. The partner that agitated me and knew the buttons to push and was a combustible delivery and presentation was Paul Heyman. The partner that goes off the radar and was absolutely outstanding was Jim Cornette. Much like JBL and myself working together, we would be considered by the mainstream TV world as being too southern, so that will never happen. Cornette would be awesome. JBLwould be very good. Taz would get such a contrast in sound. I love working with Terry Funk is the most underrated guy I worked with. Bob Caudle by far the most underrated announcer in the history of the business. I love working with Bobby Heenan. Gorilla Monsoon was like an uncle.”

Mike Chiari: You and your voice are synonymous with a lot of the greatest and most memorable moments in wrestling history. But what is the one match or moment that you didn’t call from the announce table that you’d like to if you could go back in time and make it happen?

Jim Ross: Well I think probably the one I would have liked to call was the main event of WrestleMania 3. It was such a ground breaking event. If you’re going to be a part of a ground breaking event, you want to be a part of the main event. I would say Hogan and Andre at WrestleMania 3. It was such a simplistic match to call, it would have been very easy to call it from a stand point of what they did, but the drama one could add to the moment and to what the match meant. Some broadcasters show up, do their gig, and leave. They are just there to collect a payday. I always looked at it more than that and the big picture. The big picture for the Hulk and Andre match was that it was really going to create a buzz in the business. It was going to make the business better for everybody and create a great awareness of pro-wrestling. So I would say Hogan and Andre WrestleMania 3 would have been a real fun match to have called.

On if there is a match or moment he called that he wish he could re-do: “Probably a lot of them if I go back and listen to them. I am my own worst critic. One of the advantages I have enjoyed of the WWE network that I subscribe to since day one and I certainly am renewing. I can go back and listen to some of my work on those old pay-per-views from WCW and WWE. Right now, I’m working on my auto-biography and were getting close to the part where I talk about the death of Owen Hart. I have to go back and watch that segment of pay-per-view from 1999, and I have never looked at it ever. I’m kind of dreading that to be honest with you. I purposefully never looked at it, I didn’t want to see it again, I already lived it and that was enough. I think I could have done a better job calling the Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair retirement match. It just seemed that our timing at the table that night was off for me. I always look back at that match, it was Ric’s last match inWWE, Shawn was in the ring with him, and it was a big deal. I was the third guy in the booth that night withLawler and Cole. I’m not a big three men in the booth type of guy. Not that it can’t work, it can, but it seems to not work more often than not to me. I would say the Flair-Michaels match from WrestleMania 24 I would of liked to of had another shot at it.”

On his relationship with Vince McMahon now: “It’s actually pretty good. We text from time to time and talk on the phone from time to time now. Not a lot, not regularly, but you know, its fine. Vince and I got along and had a tremendous relationship. People have to understand where our relationship started. From day one, what we have built and what we survived at the time when the company was almost bankrupt. We were laying off people left and right, pay cuts, lot of people were bailing. Those of us that stayed loyal were rewarded financially. I signed at one point in the mid 90’s a ten year contract. I don’t know anyone that had a ten year contract with Vince and kept it. I have this thing about keeping my commitments and keeping my word. I kept my word and fulfilled my ten years and he paid me very, very well.

“I made more money with him than I did with anyone else combined. He told me if I stayed with him I would have nothing to worry about financially when I got older. Our issues were mainly philosophic. It was like two football coaches who wanted to run a 3-4 defense and the other wants to run a 4-3. I could plead my case why the 3-4 is better cause I got four great linebackers I can use and he could tell me why the 4-3 is better because he’s got four defense lineman that are outstanding. Our stuff was more philosophical more than anything else. At the end of the day, he won the argument more often than not because he owned the company. My dad taught me a long time ago, if you’re going to work for somebody and you’re going to take their money, you need to do what they tell you to do. So the day when you can’t look yourself in the mirror and do what they want you to do, you need to quit cashing their checks. I just cashed a WWE check the other day so I got no issues with them whatsoever. A lot of that stuff about McMahon and I has been blown out of proportion.

“He knows I take myself too seriously. He knows I wear my feelings on my sleeve, and he likes to be able to get under my skin. He gets a kick out of it and I can understand that, I get it. No one should mistake what I am saying that we talk regularly because we do not. But we still communicate, like have a few laughs in a text message or special occasions come up. We accomplished a great deal together. That talent roster that he gave me the ability to hire, they are still using those guys. John Cena last time I looked, Randy Orton last time I looked, Batista and the Rock in and out. We did accomplish a lot of great things together and I never worked with anyone that worked harder. Now, I’m not kissing his ass or anything like I need a job, cause I don’t need a job, I got plenty to do.

“I watched a lot of my peers go through their money with cocaine, marijuana, booze, wives, and more. I decided I was going to save my money. I was going to retire at 55, I’m 62 now, and having more fun than I ever have since the Attitude Era. Yea we butted heads, had our pissing contest, but there is still a lot of respect there. He knows that if there is a jam, I am a phone call away and vice versa. Was it tumultuous? Sure. Did we hate each other? Absolutely not. I had the balls at the time to say when I thought he was wrong in a polite way. He had a lot of people that he paid a lot of money that took the path of least resistance. They would bitch about it afterwards when the decision had been made instead of being polite, diplomatic, and conversing when given the opportunity. Some of those guys are still there now which I would assume they are. Some though should be ashamed of themselves. Vince paid them damn good money to be honest. It’s just the fact that some of them just don’t have good presentation skills and don’t know how to present themselves while making a point. That’s just the art of communicating.”

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