10 Most Successful Outsiders In WWE History
5. Jim Ross
Heres one you probably didnt expect to see. While Jim Ross has (thankfully) only stepped into a wrestling ring to put his dukes up on a few occasions, his contributions to the WWE are both boundless and timeless. His calls resonate with anyone who watches the matches he did commentary for, as he invokes real human emotion nothing is prepped, and everything is made better for it. He was an everyman to the WWE product, providing a comforting, reliable voice of reason to a world that oftentimes shouldnt have made a lick of sense. And it almost never happened.
Broadcasters go to die in the world of the three-man booth. The set-up is a graveyard for even the most distinguished voices. We hear it on a weekly basis, where everyone is trying to get their point across at once to create a cataclysm of useless noise. Jim Ross was the voice of WCW (strike one), a man with a thick southern accent (strike two), and the third wheel of a menagerie of three-man teams in his first few years in the WWE (strike three). Somehow, someway, he wasnt out.
After facing the trials of having his contract expire, and being brought back in for a second chance for those inevitable three-man booths with incalculable talents, Monday Night RAW settled in behind the booming voices and opinions of Jim Ross and the miscreant Jerry Lawler. Ross donned a cowboy hat as a rib by McMahon and Co., and used the new image to his advantage as it gave fans a trustworthy face to go along with his unwavering, iconic voice. Ross stood up to his bouts of Bells Palsy in gutsy fashion, just another underdog intricacy to perhaps the most beloved babyface in the companys history. As Bobby Heenan was to being bad, Ross was to being good, proving that not everyones worth in wrestling is measured by what they do between the ropes.