Oklafan.com v5 Beta

Q&A with Jim 'J.R.' Ross

Posted: Oct 10th 2014 By: Scott Strandberg - www.normantranscript.com

Many Oklahomans know Jim ?J.R.? Ross as the face of barbecue in the state. While J.R.?s Family BBQ restaurants in Norman and Moore have since gone out of business, J.R. has turned the closings into an opportunity to expand his line of sauces and condiments, which is now a global empire. Through his partnership with the family-owned, Oklahoma City-based Clements Foods, J.R.?s ?Made In Oklahoma? products are available all across North America and Europe.

For others, J.R. is a staple on the sidelines at Sooner football games. His signature black cowboy hat stands out from the sea of red helmets, whether OU is at home or away. The Westville, OK native is a true Sooner devotee, and that was part of the reason he and his wife moved to Norman from their previous home in Connecticut a few years ago. ?I wish I would have moved to Norman earlier,? J.R. says, ?but we?re making up for lost time.?

For most people worldwide, however, ?Good Ol? J.R.? is a broadcast legend; an international celebrity from his decades as a wrestling announcer, primarily for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The defining voice of sports entertainment parted ways with WWE in 2013, but to say that he keeps busy would be an understatement. When he?s not pursuing philanthropic interests as the honorary chairman of the nationwide Headlock on Hunger charity, or visiting soldiers? families down at Fort Sill, he?s experiencing a career rebirth in mixed martial arts and boxing.

NTown caught up with J.R. just before he made his mixed martial arts broadcast debut, last Friday at the Battlegrounds MMA pay-per-view at the BOK Center in Tulsa.

NTown: It?s been more than a year since you left WWE. It doesn?t feel like it?s been that long, does it?

J.R.: No, it sure doesn?t. When I left, I said I was going to try to reinvent myself. There are things that I've always wanted to do, but due to contractual obligations, or my crazy schedule, I had been unable to attempt. I've done NFL football, and I've done the XFL on NBC. I wanted to do boxing, and I did a boxing event on Memorial Day. I'm probably going to do some more. My manager is in talks with Fox now for me to do more boxing for Oscar de la Hoya's company, Golden Boy Promotions. We'll see how those talks end up. Then I do my first MMA play-by-play gig on pay-per-view.

NTown: How does your approach to announcing change from wrestling, to boxing and MMA? What stays the same regardless of the event you?re calling?

J.R.: The thing that will hopefully make it transition smoothly is the fact that, when I got in the business of doing television, there was no pay-per-view. One of the first things on pay-per-view was wrestling, and so I got on the ground floor of that broadcast format, and since that time I have done more pay-per-views than anybody alive. As far as doing pay-per-view, and keeping the rudder in the water, and keeping the broadcast going, I don't feel too uncomfortable in that arena. The beautiful part about this Battlegrounds MMA event that I'm doing is that two of the principals of the organization are Oklahomans. Kenny Monday, he's one of the most decorated amateur wrestlers in the history of the sport. He went to Booker T. Washington High in Tulsa. He won virtually every award there was to win at Oklahoma State. He was a world competitor, an Olympian, and he's one of the participants in this program. Also, there's Bryan O'Rourke, he's heavily involved, and he also lives in the Tulsa area. I have been a massive MMA fan for years and years, because before that I loved to watch boxing. I am a big boxing fan, but for a variety of reasons, boxing kind of went into a valley. That's an interesting thing, because it ties back to WWE. WWE created their own network, so you can watch their pay-per-views and subscribe to their network. It costs you $9.99 a month. The cable providers became somewhat upset about that, and they have decided that they're going to have a lot of promotional time for other PPV events, because of the lost revenue from WWE. The little engine that could, Battlegrounds MMA, they gave them all this promotional time, and the opportunity to market a PPV.

NTown: So, those were the factors that led to you testing the waters in the MMA world?

J.R.: Yes, I'm going to be making my play-by-play debut. I'll be working with a very controversial MMA fighter and broadcaster, Chael Sonnen. Chael ran afoul of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. He lost his license, then he lost his job with UFC, then he lost his job at Fox. He got the old double-whammy when he flunked the drug test. He walked into the Nevada State Athletic Commission and he said, "I cheated. I tried to gain an unfair advantage, and you caught me. So I'm here to take my punishment." They suspended his license, then Fox did what they thought they needed to do, and they fired him. He was a big fan of my work, and I his, so I called him and said, "These guys are talking to me about doing the play-by-play on this fight." I told him I'd love to have him as my partner if he was interested. He said he'd love to do it, so they got their deal done. So now, he and I -- it's one of those funny things. We're new. We're the new voices of MMA, as far as the media is concerned. They've heard the same voices for so long that they're dying to hear something different. They?re ready to hear somebody else?s rendition of the product. We don't have any expectations. We've never done it before together. Chael has been dynamite in the studio and live. I thought he was just terrific. I've had my moments, good, bad or indifferent, doing play-by-play at pay-per-view events. I think one of the misnomers, as far as my part is concerned is, "J.R. comes from this pro wrestling world, where the endings are predetermined." Well, they're right about that, but what they don't know is that I always tried my best to go into an event, and not be tuned into what the endings were going to be.

NTown: Because then you?re giving the fans your genuine emotion as the match goes on.

J.R.: Absolutely. That's how I look at this deal. The endings are not predetermined, so I obviously won't know what they are. I think that I will do a better job, because I'm just going to document what I see, what I feel, and how I process the information. I'm excited about it. I think we're going to have a lot of fun. It's going to be entertaining. It's going to be different. It could be the beginning of something really significant in the second half of my broadcasting career, or it may be that as I'm writing my autobiography now, it's a very short chapter of my flirting with MMA. I had the chance to do other wrestling after WWE, but I wanted to do different projects. I want to say, "Hey, I did wrestling for 40 years, and a lot of people thought I was pretty good at it." I got to go to the Hall of Fame, and that was great. I'm proud of that, but I want to try something else. So we did the boxing, and I want to do more boxing. Now, the next step is what I think I'm probably best-suited for, and that's MMA. I'm staying busy with that, and my agent in LA, we're finalizing the next Ringside with Jim Ross tour.

NTown: Right, your one-man show.

J.R.: Yeah. I missed being around the audience. I missed being around these passionate fans. Wrestling fans are the most passionate fans in the world. I missed that interaction with the fans, so last year, I did two shows in Gramercy Theatre in New York City. I played the House of Blues in New Orleans. I played a beautiful theater in Toronto. I played the House of Blues in Chicago. I did a couple of colleges, and that was just getting started, working my act out. So, now we're going to go back to the UK. I'm going to do two nights in London in June, if everything goes according to plan. That'll be cool. Two years ago, I played the Leicester Theatre, and it's a classic old Shakespearean-like theater, where they had plays. It's in the arts district in London. It sits about 400 people. I sold that out, and one of the coolest things, for one with a rather lofty ego, is that when you go to your show, and there are people outside scalping tickets. I thought, man, this is a long way from Westville, Oklahoma. That's my hometown in Adair County. That's a long way from Adair County to be in London, at one of the oldest Shakespearean theaters in the city, and people are scalping tickets for your one-man show. For some reason, I just got a big kick out of that. I thought that was the coolest thing.

NTown: That's totally understandable. Not only did you sell out, but there was so much demand that people were willing to pay more than face value to get in the door.

J.R.: It was a fun deal. On that tour, I played Cardiff, Wales; Glasgow, Scotland; both Manchester and London in England. I'm going to do London two days on this next trip, and we're negotiating for me to go to Ireland, and play Belfast and Dublin as a part of this trip. It's a real simple, straight-forward format, and I have a blast doing it. It?s just me and the audience, and we're telling stories and enjoying each other's company.

NTown: What is it like for you in that setting? Are there nerves at play there, even for a person with as much experience in broadcast as you? Being on that stage by yourself, being the sole center of attention, is that something different?

J.R.: I think any performer that tells you that they have no reluctance, no anxiety, no nerves, is either extraordinarily gifted, or they're burned out and it just doesn't matter anymore, or they might be fibbing a little bit. My answer is that I have plenty of nerves. When I got to the UK two years ago to do the first brush with these one-man shows, I left the states on a Friday. I landed on a Saturday morning in London, I got in a car, and I drove to Cardiff. I had flown all night. I was kind of numb, but the good news was, before I got on the plane until five in the morning to London, I knew that all four of my shows that we were going to do were sold out. That gave me the satisfaction to know that people actually cared, and wanted to come see me. It also put pressure on me, that I've got to deliver. I was fiddling with my bits and my script. Some guys like to do their script, and they don't deviate from it. They have a routine. I'm just not a routine type of performer.

Make sure to pick up the Oct. 17th edition of The Transcript for part two of our exclusive interview with Jim Ross. Topics include J.R.?s stories from the wrestling industry, as well as a discussion about his podcast and forthcoming autobiography. Finally, we?ll wrap things up by talking about current WWE Superstar Jack Swagger, formerly known as OU wrestler and football player Jake Hager.