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Wrestling legend Jim Ross brings one-man show to Nashville

Posted: Nov 4th 2016 By: www.Tennesean.com

Jim Ross grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, where he learned the early-to-bed, early-to-rise lifestyle, worked his way through college and stood on the brink of graduation when, as his father put it, he joined the circus and never came home.

Ross stumbled into the professional wrestling business and went on to become the iconic voice of the WWE and one of the most influential executives in the history of the industry.

Ross has cultivated a one-man show about his stranger-than-fiction life and will be appearing on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at Zanie’s. The show is not a stand-up routine, though Ross did say many of his behind-the-scenes wrestling stories are funny. Ross’s shows almost always sell out, largely due to
hard core wrestling fans clamoring for behind-the-scenes stories about Ross’s time with WCW and during the apex of professional wrestling’s popularity with WWE in the late 1990s.

Ross took a summer job making $125 per week for a local promotion during his final year of college, but ultimately rose to the top of the industry.

“I thought it would be a cool summertime job, learn a lot of stories, and I’d get to travel with these crazy people who wrestle for a living,” Ross said. “Then I would go back to college, graduate with that one semester I needed and call it a day. It’d be one of those over-a-cold-beer stories, ya know? Well that summer job lasted 40-plus years and I just couldn’t or wouldn’t break away and get back to normality to some degree.”

To understand Ross’s unique and profound influence on professional wrestling, it might be best to think in terms of the NFL. During his run with the WWE, Ross was the Tennessee Titans equivalent of play-by-play announcer Mike Keith and general manager Jon Robinson.

Ross was both an executive in charge of scouting and signing new talent, and the weekly play-by-play announcer for the WWE’s Monday Night RAW program. Ross counts Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton and countless others among those he signed to WWE contracts.

For his efforts, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Not bad for an Oklahoma farm boy who ended up in the wrestling business after he connected with a regional promoter who put on shows in conjunction with Ross’s college fraternity.

The promoter, Bill Watts, became Ross’s mentor. In the infancy of his career, Ross assembled the ring, promoted shows, wrote press releases and even officiated matches. He also began calling matches as a television announcer, the role for which he is best known.

“I was an only child and we lived on a 160-acre farm in eastern Oklahoma," Ross said. "Mom and dad didn’t have the money to hire a babysitter so I spent a lot of time by myself with my imagination, with books that I read. And I had a transistor radio. For whatever reason that radio signal became a buddy and I listened to KMOX radio at night when I was supposed to be asleep and I listened to Jack Buck
and Harry Caray describe the night.”

When Ross got his chores done properly and on time, his dad would let him watch professional wrestling on the weekends. That’s when Ross got hooked.

Ross said the work ethic he learned on the farm served him well when he held the dual responsibilities in talent relations and broadcasting.

“My dad said to one of his buddies in front of me, ‘My boy ran off and joined the circus, he just never came home,” Ross said, adding that his years in the circus of professional wrestling set the stage for the unique stories he tells during his show.

Nashville native, former WWE star and founder of upstart promotion Global Force Wrestling Jeff Jarrett lauded Ross’s impact on the industry.

“JR’s career is one of the greatest wrestling stories of all time,” Jarrett said. “He is the voice of this generation of professional wrestling and in my opinion he has no peers. And that’s because he has more passion today for professional wrestling than he did the day he got into it.”

Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and follow him on Twitter @tnnaterau.

If you go

Ringside with Jim Ross

At Zanies, 7: 30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 9

Tickets: $25 for general admission and $75 for VIP packages