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WrestleMania, XFL fond Orlando memories for broadcaster Jim Ross

Posted: Feb 4th 2017 By: Jay Reddick

Jim Ross’s two most vivid memories of broadcasting in Orlando are very different from one another. Both were historic: Ric Flair’s final WWE match and the first game in XFL history.

When the Citrus Bowl hosted WrestleMania XXIV in 2008, Ross was not a part of WWE’s weekly TV shows. But Flair and his opponent that night, Shawn Michaels, lobbied the company to let Ross call the match.

“They brought me out of mothballs that night in Orlando, and it was a great honor to be there on such a historic occasion,” Ross said in a wide-ranging phone interview this week.

As for the XFL, Ross was NBC’s play-by-play voice when the Orlando Rage took on the Chicago Enforcers in the debut of the football league in 2001. Many see Vince McMahon’s venture as a laughingstock today, but Ross has a different opinion.

“I never saw the XFL as a negative,” Ross said. “It’s still on my resume. It wasn’t good quality football, crazy things went on, but it was showbiz. I just looked at it as something different.”

Ross will bring those stories and more when he visits Orlando’s Plaza Live on his spoken-word tour April 1 and 2, part of WrestleMania 33 weekend. Tickets start at $25 and are available at www.ticketfly.com

“Good Ol’ J.R.” has been doing the spoken-word shows, called “Ringside with Jim Ross,” sporadically since shortly before his 2013 departure from WWE. He said the shows usually begin with a short monologue on the current state of the wrestling business, but the majority of the time is taken to answer fans’ questions.

“I really enjoy doing the shows,” Ross said. “It replaces what I miss not doing live TV anymore. The adrenaline of performing live in front of an audience is a feeling that’s hard to replicate. My show is no-holds-barred, and it’s a labor of love to me.”

The audience portion lets the show be a little more free-form, an old-school format that Ross can appreciate after his years in wrestling.

“My show is essentially dictated by how things are going in the wrestling business,” Ross said. “It’s like old matches – you didn’t rehearse, you just went out there and sold what the audience was buying. That’s what’s sometimes missing in today’s matches…there’s no sense in fixing what’s not broken. After we go into the Q&A, the best part is that the fans write that script. It’s immediate feedback, and it’s even a form of market research for me on what the fans want.”

You can still find Ross on the air. He is the play-by-play man for New Japan Pro Wrestling weekly on AXS, works occasionally for wrestling promotions around the world, and will call boxing at about 20 events this year on CBS Sports Network – more chances to stay in the live sports world that he so clearly loves. We spoke on the morning of broadcaster Brent Musburger’s final game with ESPN after more than 40 years behind the mic.

“I met Brent Musburger a few times – he’s a good man – but there’s no way in hell he’s going to retire,” Ross said. “Once you get that rush, it’s hard to give that up. He might not call games for ESPN anymore, but he’ll be back on the air somewhere. Same with me.”

Ross, who turned 65 last month, said his Ringside shows, especially when wrapped around big wrestling pay-per-view weekends, serve as a celebration of the sport.

“I’ve been a wrestling fan my whole life, and for so many years a lot of us have been, for lack of a better word, bullied,” Ross said. “We’ve been teased, kidded, eyes rolled from our peers and family members. ‘You watch wrestling?!?’ I see my shows as a safe zone, a safe haven. We’re all wrestling fans here. At WrestleMania, there will be fans from all over the world all coming together, and we get to talk about wrestling. That’s a great thing.”

For extensive excerpts of my interview with Jim Ross, including his thoughts on WrestleMania, the current state of independent wrestling and his philosophy on broadcasting matches, click here.