10 Things You Didn’t Know About Jim Ross
8. How He Broke Into The Business
It may seem strange to think of now, but JR’s first break in
the wrestling business actually came as a referee rather than an announcer.
Having made his bow in 1974, JR would spend three years working under Leroy McGuirck as an official for the NWA Tri-State promotion. By the sounds of it, though, the job wasn’t necessarily all it was cracked up to be.
JR speaks of ride-sharing with wrestlers and being paid 2 cents a mile for his driving services, of sometimes having to crash on hotel room floors, and of taking “a lot of abuse in the ring and on the road.”
Those rigours soon caused him to consider his options, and when the territory’s announcer one day failed to show his face, JR jumped at the chance to take his place.
Just a few years later, and after Bill Watts had bought out NWA
Tri-State and merged it into his Mid-South Wrestling territory, JR was installed
as the lead play-by-play announcer, and hopefully was no longer sleeping on hotel room floors.