It's the end of an era. WWE Hall Of Famer and the greatest play-by-play announcer in professional wrestling history, Jim 'JR' Ross officially completed his contractual obligations with WWE today. If you don't read his blog, or the dirt sheets, you might be wondering what JR's been doing for WWE up until now, as he's only sporadically been on television in the last few years. Well, Paul Levesque (better known as Triple H) re-hired him as an advisor and scout in Talent Relations back in 2012, and Ross began working in developmental at NXT, and coaching up-and-coming announcers. It's a position he lost when Ric Flair famously hijacked the WWE 2K14 press panel before SummerSlam 2013. Ross was drafted for the day to run the panel, and around an hour into the talk, an allegedly 'tired and emotional' Flair began to talk and wouldn't stop for nearly twenty minutes, ripping into Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Bret Hart, Mick Foley, and Daniel Bryan. Based on this performance, WWE cancelled Flair's scheduled appearance at SummerSlam itself. But one man took the blame for losing control of the panel good ol' JR, who got the sack. He's been on a Legends contract ever since, allowing him to make guest appearances on TV, record interview segments for DVDs, that sort of thing. Typically gracious to the end, Ross noted a couple of days ago on his blog that, "It was by far the best professional move that I ever made going to work for WWE in 1993 and I am grateful for the quality of life that they helped facilitate for my family and me." We're starting a 'thank you, JR" chant around the office right now.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
