Must-Read Jim Ross Interview – Austin, Punk, TNA, Vince, More

Jim Ross spoke with The Mirror promoting the NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 show. Check out the highlights:

On Jeff Jarrett contacting him to work GFW: “Jeff made the inroads, he and my business manager worked out the deal, it was a win-win for both of us, so I said ‘I’m in.’ I’m excited about it. I’ve been in this business for 40 years, so when you get a chance to do something new after being around that long, it’s pretty motivating. I look at this as a new adventure, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

On if he’ll do more shows: “I don’t know if I’ll do any more, I don’t know that I want to do any more. If there’s anything after that it’ll be a bonus. But I’m going to do this show, I’m preparing to do this show, like it’s my last major pay-per-view lead play-by-play.”

On his preparation for the show: “I’m not going to phone anything in. I’m going to be prepared. It may not be as smooth as with the WWE guys, because a lot of those guys, in one period in time, I hired, so obviously I knew them well. These are guys I’ve never watched wrestle in person ever. I’m going to let my instincts take over. I think it has the chance to be a good broadcast. People say, ‘Do you know what’s going to happen in the matches?’ Well, yeah, generally, but the less I know the better my performance is.”

On his WWE departure: “I had 21 years there – it wasn’t like I had a brief little run and everything was over. I had a great run in WWE, I went into the Hall of Fame, there were a lot more good days than bad ones. Was it the ideal way to exit? Probably not. I assumed a level of responsibility in that SummerSlam symposium, I was driving the train and the train got off the tracks, so the decision was made that it wasn’t a good thing and I moved on.”

On if he would go back to WWE: “There’s an old expression in wrestling that says ‘never say never’, when you are in my stage of my life, where I’ve been so blessed with this career, I’m not going to tell you that I’d never go [back] but it’d strictly depend on my role and how much time away from home it would demand. I leave the door open. Would I say definitively no, I would never work for WWE again? Absolutely not. It would necessitate me to give it some thought and it would depend on what the job description was and what they wanted me to do. I’m 62, I’ll be 63 in January, I have to be conscious of jobs.”

On the presence of social media in wrestling: “Social media has become a member of the family, whether you want them to move in or not, they’re there. With WWE or any wrestling organisation, you didn’t want to reveal the outcomes of things … it’s like people that review a movie, they’ll do a review with a thumbs up or thumbs down, but I’ve never read a movie review that revealed the end of the movie. In the wrestling world, the spoilers are a big deal, people love to get the news ahead of time, they rush to their computer to get the scoop, and then they give away the ending of the movie. I don’t find that to be the least bit entertaining or necessary information for me. I’d rather not know the ending of the movie until I see it.”

On if TNA has tried to lure him over since he left WWE: “No. They know I don’t have any desire to get back in the weekly grind of that. Dixie and no-one else has asked about me coming back full-time and that’s why this opportunity [with GFW] was so fit really – it was a one-time deal, a one-off. I like knowing I don’t have any pressure on me beyond that, I can focus on this one big event, really try to nail it without any pressure that I’ve got to do something tomorrow, or next week, or next month.”

On John Cena: “Since we signed John Cena, no-one has outworked John Cena. John Cena’s work ethic is beyond reproach. It’s been phenomenal to see what he does and he’s made himself a brand. John was willing to do things that had not been done, he was willing to take a chance – his wrestling attire was non-traditional, he was a Caucasian rapper and that was unique for wrestling, that was bold. Vince made a good point, Cena did all he could to become the guy. Has anyone else since John Cena worked in every phase of their game to get really good? I think the argument could be made that some have worked as hard as Cena in some areas, but not across the board as he has. Sometimes if you look at your talent as athletes, not entertainers, they need to be challenged occasionally – we need you to play better, I need you to lose 20 pounds, I need you to work on your tan, as silly as that sounds. From an athletic point of view, every coach has those heart-to-hearts with their team at some point in time. If you’re going to go down the athletic road, every now and then they need a pep talk, and every now and then they need to ask themselves, ‘What have I done to make myself better than I was last week? What am I doing to make myself a more valuable player?’

On Vince McMahon’s “brass ring” comment: “I think Vince is sending a subtle message there, or not-so-subtle, that Cena was the last guy that went the complete distance to grab the brass ring. And then when he grabbed the brass ring he didn’t quit growing, he kept trying to get better. He’s their guy right now, lord knows what they would be without John Cena.”

On the argument that Cena is overexposed: “I can never agree with people that say ‘Cena’s overexposed’ … you think that’s the way WWE likes it? You don’t think they’d like to have John Cena as number one, and have a 1A, a 1B, and a 1C? People think you can wave a magic wand and create a star, that couldn’t be further from the truth. People think that a promoter has all the cards and the talents are merely pawns and they have very little do with the bigger success, when they have most of their success because of what they do. I think the guys need to be more aggressive in pushing the envelope, they’ve got to do more things to get better. There’s never been a more challenging time to become a wrestling star than there is right now. However, there’s never been a more opportune time to break through and become big and make massive money quickly. There’s so few legitimate main event level stars. If you can break through that ceiling, you can print money. Everybody will tell you they want to headline WrestleMania, but they’d spit the bit. It’s a horseman term, the horse wouldn’t like the bit in his mouth so he’d spit it out. Some guys talk a big game about wanting to headline WrestleMania – and I don’t mean CM Punk whatsoever – but then you need to do that. That should be your goal every day, it should be your last thought when you lay your head on your pillow, ‘I want to headline WrestleMania’.”

On CM Punk’s departure: “I’d say the issues there, the culprit can largely be pointed out as a lack of communication or a communication breakdown. Both parties at some point, seemingly, stopped communicating to a significant degree – just enough to get by and that’s it. That’s how it seems. The key thing is that every talent is different and everybody’s personality is different, you’ve got to be very aware of your surroundings and how these talents are reacting, their body language – are they loners? Have they migrated to another group of disgruntled guys? There’s a lot of scenarios. The overall thing I would have tried to have done was stay observant and keep my ear to the ground so I could hear troubling and I would have tried to maintain more reciprocal communication.”

On Steve Austin’s walking out and return: “I knew that Austin was miserable at home, he worked his whole career to become a star, he finally became a star, then through a lack of timely communication and the fact he was burned out, he went home. After he’d been gone for eight months, I knew him well enough that he was ready to get out of the house and re-engage but to do that he needed to communicate openly, honestly and privately with the chairman. I arranged for them to have a meeting in Houston and they both wanted me to come to the meeting. I told Vince, ‘I’m not doing it. You can order me there and I’ll be sick, I’ll have a sick day. We’re not going to accomplish what we need to accomplish as a company if I’m there. This needs to be completely the two of you and let the cards fall where they may. You can both be brutally honest, you can be upfront, and it stays right there in that room.’ I don’t know how the conversation went, I don’t know what they both said, I don’t know how close it came to be being not a positive meeting, all I know is that the result we wanted occurred.”

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