On a recent edition of his Grilling JR podcast, WWE Hall of Famer and AEW commentator Jim Ross opined on various pro wrestlers and WWE’s interest or lack of interest in them towards the waning days of The Attitude Era.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On WWE not having interest in Shane Douglas in 2000: “I don’t know. Vince was never high on Shane for whatever reason. The expert in wrestling that had the most confidence in Shane Douglas was Jim Barnett. Barnett thought he was a stereotype or a classic babyface blonde hair, blue eyes good size, but for whatever reason Vince was never sold on Shane. So, that didn’t go anywhere.”
On whether Billy Kidman could have made the move to WWE and be successful: “Maybe, but we weren’t doing much with the Cruiserweights and Billy was a smaller guy highly talented, highly talented. I think he’s still there, I think he works in agent type thing. He’s a smart kid. I used to call him the biggest overachiever in the world because he married Torrie Wilson. What are you thinking? So, anyhow, but Billy had all he checked a lot of boxes there’s no doubt about that and we did use him some, but we just weren’t prioritizing our budget to hire more Curiserweights.”
On if Konnan didn’t fit the WWE: “I have great respect for Charles, aka Konnan. He has a brilliant mind was a hell of a worker when he’s healthy. Great star, but we couldn’t find or didn’t maybe we didn’t look hard enough. We didn’t, we couldn’t find something that we thought would be a great fit for what he would need to be happy. Including money and a place on the card and things like that. You got to remember he’s an established veteran he’s a star he drew a lot of money in Mexico and he drew money in America, etc. Wherever he went he had good runs, but you know he would have been great to have around because he could help the guys, but Vince just wasn’t excited about that concept about that idea.
On if the WWE audience was ready for wrestlers likes Rey Mysterio, Psychosis and Juventud Guerrera in 2000: “Well, we were ready for Rey Mysterio, but Rey Mysterio when they closed down they owed Rey a lot of money. Rey was a star. It doesn’t matter he was and Vince always had this idea and guys that are listening to this that were in the company at that time or around it new Vince always had this idea to do a Mighty Mouse type character. It’s smaller than average guy that overcomes all the obstacles with being resourceful and fast and so forth. But, he was making I think Rey was making north of 500 grand and we weren’t going to go there. He can make more than that and he did all the time. He’s a seven figure guy, but when he was healthy he was booked on the live events. So, we always had thoughts for Rey but not for the group, but Rey was a different breed of cat.”
