For many years, Vince McMahon has been obsessed with his announcers' most superficial traits, feeling that the uninflected voice of his product should come from a young, handsome face. This led to a complicated relationship with longtime lead announcer Jim Ross, an older, overweight man who suffers from a form of facial paralysis known as Bell's palsy - and who was uniformly recognized as the best announcer in wrestling. For many years, cooler heads prevailed - despite McMahon's repeated humiliations of Ross and attempts to replace him, J.R. always ended up back behind the broadcast table. That all changed in 2008, when Ross was drafted to Smackdown and Michael Cole took his place as lead Raw announcer. The next year, Ross suffered a relapse of Bell's palsy, and his job was not waiting for him when he returned. Jim Ross has made sporadic appearances over the ensuing years (and even called New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 9 Pay-Per-View in early 2015), reminding fans why he's considered the best at his job and proving how deep the chasm between him and the current crop of announcers is.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
