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JR's Blog: Saturday Update...OKC Raw Big...Working with Solie...Strikeforce...Herschel...OKC Thunder...JR in Twitter-land...FREE SHIPPING

Posted: Mar 1st 2010 By: CMBurnham

It's another beautiful, snow free weekend here in Norman, Oklahoma and we thank you for stopping by our site. I've been signing several, personally autographed JR's Cookbooks this weekend so thanks for your orders. Let's roll with some random thoughts....

Just a note...DO NOT use the "Contact Us" section of this site for anything other than feedback regarding our products, good or bad, and for potential business opportunities IE from those wanting to do retail business with us. Any other questions or comments should be directed here even if you want them confidential as if they are marked not for publication I won't make them public. I just found out that I have over 4,000 unanswered emails in the "Contact Us" section that will take me weeks to address and/or delete.

Big day in Oklahoma City Monday with Raw in town. Looks like the event will be a complete sellout at the beautiful Ford Center with only a handful of tickets still remaining. Love the fact that tickets are priced starting at $15 which is a great value.

I will be joined by Oklahoma native and former Sooner Jack Swagger at court side of the OKC Thunder game versus Toronto Sunday night at 6 central on Fox Sports Southwest. I love our NBA team and look forward to watching Kevin Durant and crew light it up Sunday with one of Raw's brightest young stars.

JR's Family BBQ is providing the catering for the WWE talents and crew on Monday at the Ford Center which is always a hoot. I love watching folks enjoy our great "Q" especially for the ones who don't live in areas where big time BBQ is plentiful.

Several of the wrestlers are regular customers of our products and order on line just as many of you do.

Hopefully, I will get to say hello to some of the fans who venture to Norman to enjoy JR's BBQ in our joint on Monday. We're located on I-35 South at exit 109 and open at 11 a.m. I will be there during the middle of the day and might be joined by a recognizable guest or two. No guarantee but one never knows.

Digging the NFL Draft coverage on the NFL Network this weekend. Several of my Sooners are there doing, arguably, the most important job interview of their careers.

Watched Strikeforce Friday night on Showtime. As many of you know, I am a HUGE MMA fan and even though I enjoyed the show I thought it was somewhat average. I did watch it twice which speaks to my passion for that genre.

I always enjoy listening to the passionate Mauro Ranallo do his thing on play by play.

Word on the street is that CBS may book Herschel Walker to have his second MMA fight and it be on their network this April at the Strikeforce event. If that does materialize, it's a smart move by Strikeforce and CBS as far as utilizing Herschel as a prominent, promotional vehicle. Walker is truly an amazing athlete who, at age 47, is taking his MMA training seriously and is so respectful of the sport. Walker is a pure "attraction" and his name identity is a strong promotional and publicity gathering vehicle.

I hope that you follow me on Twitter which is an account that WWE.com set up for me which was cool of them. I appreciate all the support that I receive from WWE.com even though what I sometimes Twitter makes some folks cringe. I'm not a talented enough writer to denote when I'm simply having fun or being serious which is something that I admittedly need to address. Check out http://twitter.com/JRsBBQ. and remember, kids, never drink and Twitter. (That was a joke, BTW.)

An emailer inquired what it was like to broadcast the 1989 famous, "I Quit" match between Ric Flair and Terry Funk with Gordon Solie. First of all, look at all the greats involved in that presentation. Flair, Funk AND Gary Hart along with Solie, the best wrestling broadcaster of all time. It was cool as hell I can tell you broadcasting with my wrestling announcing role model. Gordon had become somewhat irrelevant to the main stream wrestling world when I was able to help facilitate his return to TBS and suggested that we work together as a team on that event. We did other TBS shows as well but the event from Troy, New York was special. Naitch and Terry had a classic, physical battle while Gary Hart was amazing at what he did and, almost as important, what he didn't do at ringside. Less is often more in this business for the record. Gordon loved to be engaged with the product again and seemed to embrace his role as I was able to do the so called heavy lifting of providing the play by play and Gordon was able to come in and hit us with memorable sound bytes with his unique and cerebral insight to the business. Hopefully, some day, Gary Hart will be in the WWE HOF, too, and I still encourage any fan to read Gary's book which is simply a classic. Honest, real, up front, and historic in context for any true fan of the business.

The TV product was different to broadcast in those days as most of the primary, main events utilized more TV time. Stories were easier told and the audience had a better opportunity to emotionally invest in what they saw. In many of today's brief, 2-4 minute matches only one or two sell-able points can truly be sold to the level that the info will be retained soon after the match ends.

We are still waiting on our overworked webmaster to finalize the changes to our website but hope that they will be ready to roll out in a day or so. Bear with us.

I went to OT in updating the Q&A section of the site earlier today. Many "conspiracy theorists" will likely have their own rendition of what I really meant by some of my answers but try not to over think any of my responses.

Have you read my latest "10 Questions" on WWE.com this week? It's on the Smackdown page.

We're still offering FREE SHIPPING to all customers in the USA and you can check out all our super offers at our on line store on this very website.

Looking forward to seeing many professional friends in OKC this Monday and catching up. One never knows how many of those opportunities one has in this life so take advantage of reconnecting with friends whenever you can.

Boomer Sooner!

J.R.

Tags: Jim Ross, Jack Swagger, WWE, Ric Flair, Terry Funk, Gary Hart