In an interview with The Norman
Transcript, Jim Ross spoke about his upcoming MMA announcing
and compared it to his time in wrestling. Here are highlights:
On his approach to MMA announcing vs wrestling: “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.”
On trying new things: “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.”
On his one man show tour: “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.”
