Jim Ross on Life After WWE, New Japan Stars and Lucha Underground Rumors

Fred: What’s up, everybody? This is Fred Richani of TSC News, and I have a very special guest on the line. He’s a WWE Hall of Famer, a true professional wrestling legend and a man with one hell of a weekend ahead of him. I’m talking about good ol’ J.R., Jim Ross. Mr. Ross, thanks so much for the time. How are you?

Jim Ross: I’m good, friend. My dad was Mr. Ross, so I’m just J.R. to you.

Fred: All right, J.R. About a year and a half ago, WWE told us you were retired. You sure as hell don’t seem retired, between the Tokyo Dome and now Philly and the New York-New Jersey area this weekend. How hectic has your schedule been since WWE?

Jim Ross: I’ve gotten busier than I originally planned. I was retired from their organization, but as far as retiring from being active, being involved in projects and interacting with the fans, I was pretty well back in game mode by the time I got from Stamford to LaGuardia. I’m working on my autobiography. I have a weekly podcast called “The Ross Report” on PodcastOne, which luckily is one of the top podcasts in the world, and I’m grateful for that. I’m doing some voiceover work with an agency in Los Angeles. This Friday night, I’ll be in Sayreville, New Jersey, the home of Bon Jovi, at the Starland Ballroom, and Sunday afternoon at 3, I’ll be at Underground Arts in Philadelphia, the day of the Royal Rumble. Then I’ll hustle back to Oklahoma on Monday and record another podcast that night. No rest for the wicked, as they say. I think retirement is overrated, Fred. Fishing can only last so long, and there’s only so much golf you can play. I like to be around people with energy, people who are passionate about things, and it’s infectious. I don’t think I’ll ever quite retire as long as I’ve got the ability to do a few things.

Fred: You’re doing quite a few things: calling boxing on Fox Sports 1, calling MMA, going to the Tokyo Dome, podcasting and your one-man shows. Are they similar adjustments, or is each one a little different?

Jim Ross: One thing all those projects have in common is that each and every one of them is something I like to do. When you’re lucky enough to find a job that’s fun, it doesn’t feel like a job. I try to be prepared, I try to be professional about my approach, and I try not to take myself too seriously. The hardest thing I’ve probably done since I left WWE was that trip to Tokyo and back a couple of weeks ago. It took me 21 hours to get from Tokyo to Norman, Oklahoma. That was a little challenging, but I had a great time over there, and it makes a trip to Philadelphia and Sayreville seem like a hop, skip and a jump, like running to the store for a gallon of milk.

Fred: Your enthusiasm leaked through the screen when I was watching on the Global Force Wrestling pay-per-view. I thought you and Matt Striker did a tremendous job calling Wrestle Kingdom. If somebody in North American pro wrestling booked with an open mind, could guys like Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada and Shinsuke Nakamura get over as big stars like they are in Japan?

Jim Ross: Absolutely. Tanahashi is the John Cena of New Japan, in essence. He’s the champion for good reason. He’s the guy who led them out of their financial doldrums and back into profitability, and he’s the guy who sold the tickets for that event at the Dome, so make no mistake, he’s a huge star. But the guy who jumped off the page at me was Nakamura. Those athletes are trained right. They have good psychology, and they’re mentally and physically tough. The block for them is being able to communicate in English with the English-speaking audience. Nakamura can do that. He trained for MMA in the States, so he has a pretty good handle on English, and he’s got a truckload of charisma. In a fantasy booking world, Paul Heyman with Nakamura would be massive money. His work style is very strong and very physical, and all those guys in New Japan are physical as hell. They’re very snug, shall we say. A lot of guys I know in today’s marketplace might not be so froggy to jump in the ring with them. I would have argued the point before, but after sitting at ringside and watching them do their thing, I changed my tune. Under the right creative and the right presentation, I truly believe they could be very successful in WWE or any other promotion. I’m a believer now in how well New Japan does it bell to bell.

Fred: MMA and boxing have gotten over guys who don’t speak the best English, or any English at all. Why is North American pro wrestling still apprehensive about foreign stars?

Jim Ross: Old habits are hard to break. The way it’s always been done is that Asian athletes are stereotypically made the villains. Everybody’s still trying to hang their hat on December 7, 1941. Most of the time, they’d have a manager, and the manager would be the sadistic heel who could talk English and speak for his wrestler. You’ve got to have someone who can communicate the wrestler’s story and emotions verbally to the television viewer, so that necessitates some English. I don’t think you have to be proficient, but you’ve got to be able to order lunch, find the bus station or find the cleaners. For decades, foreign wrestlers spoke broken English or had a manager. It’s just a matter of communication: Can you communicate with the audience verbally, and can you do it yourself, or do you need someone to help you? And I would be chasing after Okada. He’s 27 years old, he’s 6-foot-3, and he’s absolutely a prodigy. He started wrestling professionally when he was 16, so he’s got 11 years of experience. He would be a high priority on my recruiting list if I were still recruiting talent for WWE. He’s that good.

Fred: It’s amazing what TNA did, or didn’t do, with him. He was in his early 20s in TNA. When he went back to New Japan, some people thought he was getting too much too soon, but my God, he’s got to be one of the top 10 wrestlers in the world right now.

Jim Ross: He sold me, and I’m not the easiest guy to convince that somebody is one of the top 10 in the world. I got to know him a little in the two days we were together that weekend of Wrestle Kingdom, and he’s a keeper. In the old days, you’d work a deal with the New Japan office to bring Okada over for one year. You’d do the vignettes, build him up and give him a manager who could talk for him, and everybody would know when he was going to start and when he was going to exit. He’d go back to New Japan fresh, having been a major star in WWE, which would make him even more valuable to his home promotion. Promotions just don’t do that anymore. The sad thing is you’ve got organizations working really hard to be relevant and profitable, like Ring of Honor, TNA, which I’m watching on Friday nights now and pulling for, and Lucha Underground on the El Rey Network, and none of them seem inclined to cooperate with each other on any level. I had Dixie Carter on “The Ross Report” not long ago, and I said, “Why don’t all the decision makers just go have lunch, hash things out and see if there’s some synergy?” None of those groups is strong enough to overtake WWE individually, and quite frankly, all of them combined aren’t going to overtake WWE. But they could all become more profitable and develop more stars with some sort of working relationship. When I started in the wrestling business in the ’70s, there were territories, and most of the promoters cooperated. It’s the damnedest thing. I can’t understand it, and I don’t know the answer to the conundrum.

Fred: Speaking of Lucha Underground, Konnan was openly discussing you working there, and there was some debate after Wrestle Kingdom about whether you’d called your last wrestling match. Have you had talks with Lucha Underground, and if not, would you be open to calling their matches?

Jim Ross: I can tell you unequivocally that I have had no talks with Lucha Underground. I’ve heard my name has been brought up internally. Chris DeJoseph, a co-executive producer there, used to be on the WWE creative team and played a TV character called Big Dick Johnson. I had him on my podcast, and we didn’t talk about that subject. I obviously worked with Matt Striker in Japan, and we never talked about me coming in and replacing him, because it was a non-issue. I’m an independent businessman. I’m open to talking about any opportunity that makes the most sense for my wife and me. Our kids are grown and gone, and everybody’s good. Would I listen? Sure. You’re a fool not to listen, and I’d let my agent handle it. My dad told me that if it’s about money, you always listen, and you listen carefully. What I’d do with that information remains to be seen. The irony is that the job I’d probably be doing is the one I did with Matt Striker in Tokyo. I’m having the time of my life doing all these projects, and I’m happy and busy as hell as it is, but you never say never.

Fred: I’ve been doing a lot of listening to Roman Reigns’ recent promos, and it’s not exactly easy listening. This guy is supposed to be the heir apparent to John Cena. I don’t think he’s necessarily ready, but I don’t think creative is doing him any favors either. Is this the time when Reigns, as a potential top guy, has to take charge of his creative direction?

Jim Ross: That may be the bait they’re dangling in front of him, to get him to be more proactive about how his TV persona is presented. I thought Raw went off the air this week very well. It was one of their better efforts, and it was well timed as the last Raw before the Rumble on the WWE Network. Reigns has a good look, and he’s very committed. He was a big nose guard at Georgia Tech, and for anybody to lose that much weight and end up looking like this kid says a lot. He’s got the wrestling gene in his DNA as the son of Sika, one of the Wild Samoans. I’ve talked to him casually on my trips to the training facility in Florida, and he’s very glib. I’ve heard him in Dusty Rhodes’ promo class. He’s very entertaining and very quick-witted, but we’re not seeing that rendition of him on TV. So if he wants to change things about his persona and the way he’s being written for, he should raise his hand and let his voice be heard. I think he’s a keeper and is going to be a top star in WWE for years to come, but like you, I’m not sure he’s quite ready yet. I’d rather be a little bit late to the party than early. I don’t think he wins the Rumble, and I may be dead wrong. I don’t have any inside information, but I’m thinking Daniel Bryan is the perfect guy to win it. He’s the underdog, he’s very talented, and in the last year or so, they’ve allowed him to be himself, and he became himself in front of the camera. That’s what Roman Reigns needs to do. He needs to be an amplified version of who he really is, not something totally foreign to him. Creative is subjective, but if the talent is uncomfortable, the talent needs to raise his hand and effect a change.

Fred: Building on that, the guy who runs talent relations is Triple H. You had that job, so you know how stressful, how tough and how rewarding it can be. Does he need to take more charge of protecting his guys from NXT, whether they’re already on the roster, like Reigns or Dean Ambrose, or future call-ups? You look at how the Ascension has been handled, or Adam Rose and Bo Dallas.

Jim Ross: Triple H has done a phenomenal job. He built NXT from the ground up. The training camp and the atmosphere there are excellent, and they’ve recruited some really top-notch athletes, including guys who just came from the NFL. He’s ubiquitous. He’s all over the board in a variety of job descriptions, and I know the feeling. You never get off the treadmill. I think he’s doing all he can. But not unlike the New York Yankees back in the day, WWE has a very clear-cut alpha male who runs the company, and quite frankly, he’s had amazing vision. Creative is subjective. My wife was going to buy me a blue shirt, and she came home with Kansas City Royals blue when I was thinking navy blue. There are a lot of blues in this world and a lot of right ways to do things. One guy is calling the plays at the end of the day, and if his creative doesn’t fit your taste, you’re not going to be as satisfied. I don’t think the Roman Reigns promos have anything to do with Paul and the amazing job he’s doing. Vince has a vision and a long-term plan. I don’t know what it is, but somewhere down the road, hopefully we’ll say, “Now I get what they were doing.” I’ve got great confidence in the kid. He’s too good a prospect, with too much raw talent, not to be successful over the long haul.

Fred: Bellator just signed Kimbo Slice, who’s going back into MMA for the first time in about five years. The UFC signed CM Punk a few months back, and most recently it signed Cro Cop. These seem like good moves for selling tickets and drawing ratings in the short term, but long term, are Bellator and the UFC losing sight of what they really have to do?

Jim Ross: If you do it the right way, you use those leader items, guys with name identity like Brock Lesnar, Kimbo Slice and CM Punk. Punk has enormous global name identity, and he’s guaranteed the UFC at least one very significant pay-per-view buy rate. If he wins his first fight or goes down fighting in a blaze of glory, you can get a second one out of him. But when you have all those new eyeballs coming to your product, you want to be sure to expose some of your younger talents who you believe have a brighter future. You use those guys to build the young guys. That’s the way the wrestling business has been for years. The lack of new talent developed by the territory promoters is the primary reason they went out of business. They always blame McMahon, but you can only blame Vince McMahon for so many things. I worked in the territories. I saw them thrive, and I saw them die. One reason they died was the lack of new talent. The other was that the old-school promoters didn’t want to do anything different, including running TV spots outside their own shows, much less using radio. We were one of the territories that used radio significantly, because of my radio background and because Bill Watts was a very progressive marketing guy. His peers thought he was crazy for spending the money. Think of how the NFL would be without college football. It’s all about developing and acquiring new talent who can be stars.

When Lesnar’s WWE contract is up after WrestleMania, Bellator has to chase him and make him an offer he can’t refuse, but I think Lesnar could very well be on his way back to the UFC. I wouldn’t bet any money on it, and I might be dead wrong, but I don’t think he wants to leave the UFC the way he was last seen. Now that he’s healthy and can train relentlessly like he likes to, he may have some unfinished business, just for himself. Building new stars is the bottom line. Everything in WWE, TNA, Ring of Honor and Lucha Underground is going to be driven by star power. Stars equal profitability, and if you don’t have enough stars, you certainly aren’t going to have enough profitability.

Fred: Ironically enough, maybe some wrestling promotions should take note of how the UFC promoted Conor McGregor, because from a ratings and fan interest perspective, it worked out in their favor.

Jim Ross: Conor McGregor has got it, and that’s the thing a promotion can’t take credit for. I can’t take credit for The Rock becoming a major Hollywood movie star. I didn’t have anything to do with his DNA. I gave him an opportunity. I liked him when I interviewed him, I liked his workout, I liked his background, and I signed him. Vince had never even seen him and trusted my judgment, which I always appreciated. Would he stay driven, or would he take his foot off the gas? He never did. Nobody can take credit for the “it” factor, because it’s an intangible, and McGregor has it. He makes you decide whether you want to see him get his ass beat or see him win. He elicits an emotion out of you. The experiment the UFC did on Sunday night against the NFL was a calculated risk, to say the least, and they won. Did they get the NFL’s rating? Of course not. But did they accomplish a significant number for them? Absolutely. A lot of people who don’t normally watch the UFC tuned in for the first time and probably enjoyed what they saw, and if they did, they’re going to watch again somewhere down the road, and that’ll cost them some money on pay-per-view.

Fred: Well, I think people are going to like what they see this weekend. “An Evening With Jim Ross” is Friday night at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, and if you can’t make it, head over Sunday afternoon to Underground Arts in Philadelphia. Doors open at 2 p.m., and the show starts at 3. Tickets are at AXS.com. You can follow J.R. on Twitter at @JRsBBQ and listen to “The Ross Report” on PodcastOne and iTunes. Anything else, Mr. Ross?

Jim Ross: Some people are old school like me and don’t want to buy things online. Tickets will also be available at the door the day of the event at both venues, starting at 20 bucks, so if you’re not sure you can make it, the tickets will be at the door. We’re going to have a great time all weekend. And speaking of the UFC, I’m hoping to go to the UFC fight in L.A. at the end of February, and I’m very interested in seeing Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz fight. That should be some fireworks. They’re building these characters with strong personalities and creating personal conflicts. That’s the thing about CM Punk. He’s a good storyteller. When the UFC starts following his training camp and people see his body changing and see how much he’s learned, there will be renewed interest. Wrestling fans will watch the pay-per-view hoping their former hero wins, just like they did with Brock Lesnar, and the MMA hardcores will watch hoping to see the pro wrestler get his butt handed to him. That happened when Lesnar fought Frank Mir. He lost his first UFC fight and then became massive in the heavyweight division. I’m not predicting that kind of success for Punk, because he doesn’t have an NCAA championship to hang his hat on, but he’s a very bright, cerebral guy who will train diligently and religiously. I think CM Punk will be much, much better than people perceive when the time comes.