Jim Ross

James William Ross (born January 3 1952) is a professional wrestling announcer and executive currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment working on its RAW brand as their play-by-play commentator. To many peers, Ross is considered to be one of the best wrestling announcers in history and has been called the voice of World Wrestling Entertainment. He is better known as Good Ol JR or simply JR to his fans.

He suffers from Bell's palsy, which sometimes results in temporary paralysis of Ross' facial muscles. In late 1998, following the death of his mother, Ross took a break from RAW as the effects of his grief reportedly worsened his Bell's palsy, and Michael Cole filled in for Ross. Despite his condition, Ross has established himself as one of the all-time greatest wrestling commentators, often compared to Gordon Solie.

Ross is also known for his trademark black Resistol brand cowboy hat along with his own brand of barbecue sauce, beef jerky and cookbooks.

Early career
During his time in college, Ross had spent some time commenting on college radio. With this experience, Ross was given a chance to be a sideline commentator when an announcer in one territory was unable to show up one night.

Shortly after Bill Watts bought out the Mid-South territory, Ross went to work there, becoming their lead play-by-play man in 1986. The first World Title match he called was between Ric Flair and Ted DiBiase. When Jim Crockett, Jr. bought the Mid-South (since renamed the Universal Wrestling Federation) and merged it with his Jim Crockett Promotions group, Ross joined the new company and eventually supplanted Gordon Solie and Tony Schiavone as lead play-by-play man for the National Wrestling Alliance. Ross continued to hone his skills and build his legacy as Jim Crockett Promotions became World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

Ross worked his way up the ladder, yet along the way had a contentious relationship with Eric Bischoff. According to Ross, Bischoff, who reported to him, did a really good job of "selling himself" to executives of WCW's owner Turner Broadcasting. According to Bischoff, Ross mistreated him, and when Eric was promoted to executive producer in 1993, he "justly" fired Ross from the company.

As it happened, Ross had an air-tight three year contract with Turner Broadcasting, but he took an immediate buy-out for fear that he wouldn't get work elsewhere if he was taken off television for a long period of time. Mick Foley claims that Ross resigned from WCW's booking committee.

1993 - 1994
After leaving WCW Ross was hired by the World Wrestling Federation (later known as World Wrestling Entertainment), making his debut at WrestleMania IX and taking over for Gorilla Monsoon on WWF Wrestling Challenge the next weekend. Ross worked alongside Bobby Heenan on that show until Heenan left the WWF in late 1993. Ross was originally the main voice of the WWF's pay-per-view events when he was first brought in, calling both WrestleMania IX and the King of the Ring with Heenan and Randy Savage in 1993, although Vince McMahon took his place at SummerSlam 1993.

Ross was then made host of Radio WWF, which lasted a little under a year. In this role Ross was joined by co-hosts such as Johnny Polo and talked to various WWF Superstars and fans. Ross and Monsoon called SummerSlam and Survivor Series at the end of 1993 and the Royal Rumble in the beginning of 1994 for Radio WWF.

Ross was fired from his duties on February 11, 1994 and became an announcer for Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the NFLs Atlanta Falcons.

1994 - 2003
When Vince McMahon was indicted in 1994, he was unable to continue commentating on Monday Night RAW. After a few weeks of Gorilla Monsoon on play by play, the WWF rehired Ross to fill in for McMahon alongside Randy Savage during the summer of 1994. When McMahon was acquitted Ross was let go by the WWF again, but the Federation quickly rehired him in early 1995, in time for WrestleMania XI. Relocated to the syndicated WWF programming for the majority of the next two years, Ross would rejoin the primary announce team in the summer of 1996.

However, in September 1996, Ross turned heel for the first time in his career. Following Diesel and Razor Ramon leaving the WWF for World Championship Wrestling and debuting there as The Outsiders Ross began to proclaim on television that he was still in touch with "Diesel" and "Razor" and claimed that he would be bringing them back to the WWF soon. Eventually, on the September 23, 1996 episode of Monday Night RAW, Ross delivered a now infamous worked-shoot promo during which he ran down WWF Chairman Vince McMahon (in turn, outing him as chairman and not just a commentator) and debuted his "new" Diesel and Razor, claiming that while working in the WWF "front office" he'd been the man responsible for so many people leaving the company as part of his "revenge" against the WWF for how they treated him in the past.

After this angle, Ross went on to host various WWF programs such as Superstars, Action Zone, Monday Night RAW, Shotgun Saturday Night and SmackDown!. Ross again became the main voice of the WWF beginning at the 1997 Survivor Series.

In 1998 Ross took a break from Raw, due to the death of his mother and the worsening conditon of his Bell's Palsy. He eventually returned to Raw as part of a storyline alleging that Vince fired him because of his condition, but that he would not go down quietly and enlisted the services of "Dr. Death" Steve Williams as his personal "enforcer". The storyline went as far as to have Jim Ross set up his own announce table in front of the official announce table labeled "JR Is War". The storyline was soon dropped and Jim Ross took his seat back as "official" commentator of Raw starting with the main event of WrestleMania XV.

2003 - present
In 2003 he was set on fire by Kane during a segment where he was interviewing Kane, as part of the effort to get heat on Kane during his unmasking and the resultant heel turn. He was again fired (this time in kayfabe) from his play-by-play job on RAW by Vince and Linda McMahon one week after the October 3, 2005 special edition of RAW, called WWE Homecoming, because doctors had discovered an issue in JR's colon. He was replaced by Jonathan Coachman and later Joey Styles.

Soon after his "firing", JR admitted that it was a "blessing in disguise" because if he had not been relieved of his duties, he would have continued without getting the medical treatment he needed. His colon surgery was infamously spoofed by McMahon in a skit that many considered in poor taste, where McMahon pulled random objects from Ross's colon before pulling out Ross's own head ("There's your problem JR: you had your head up your ass!"), and eventually made out with the nurse.

TV shows leading up to the November 1, 2005 pay-per-view Taboo Tuesday indicated that Steve Austin would face Jonathan Coachman with Ross being "re-hired" if Austin won the match. However, Austin backed out when WWE decided he would job to Coachman, and that J.R. would not be getting his job back. Coachman (along with new allies, Goldust and Vader) faced Batista at the PPV instead with Batista winning and nothing being said about Ross.

While recovering from his colon surgery, Joey Styles called the weekly RAW. Ross was brought back for Saturday Night's Main Event, then the RAW matches at WrestleMania 22 in Chicago, before taking back his play-by-play job on RAW on May 8, 2006.

Jim Ross' contract with WWE expired in October 2006. At that point, neither side had signed a new contract and instead worked week to week under the terms of the expired contract. In November 2006, Jim Ross stated on his official blog that he had signed a new one year contract with WWE.

On March 22, 2007 Jim Ross held a lecture seminar at MIT.

Ross was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 31, 2007 by Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Outside of professional wrestling
During his days in college, Ross was a member of Phi Lambda Chi Fraternity on the campus of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Ross makes an appearance in the film about the life of Andy Kaufman, Man on the Moon.

In 2001, capitalizing on their natural chemistry together on RAW, WWE put Ross and his announcing partner, Jerry Lawler, together as an announce team for the new XFL league.

In dedication to him, January 24, 2005 was officially named "Jim Ross Day" in Oklahoma by Governor Brad Henry.

As of August 1, 2006 Ross became a writer for the website OU Insider and the accompanying publication Sooners Illustrated. Both are local beat publications about the Oklahoma Sooners.

In 2006, Ross opened his own online sauce store due to the success of his cook books. The website, titled J.R.'s Family Bar-B-Q, allowed users to buy his sauces as merchandise. The sauces and jerky can also be purchased on wwe.com The website also features a blog page where Ross interacts with his fans.

Job titles

 * Former WWE Executive Vice President of Business Strategies
 * Former WCW Executive Vice President of Broadcasting
 * Former WWE Executive Vice President of Talent Relations
 * WWE Pay-Per-View Play-By-Play Announcer
 * WWE Raw Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WWE SmackDown! Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WWF LiveWire Show Host
 * Former WWF Action Zone Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WWF Superstars of Wrestling Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WWF Wrestling Challenge Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former NWA Power Hour Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former NWA Pro Wrestling Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WCW Pay-Per-View Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WCW Clash of the Champions Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former WCW Main Event Play-by-Play Announcer
 * Former WCW Saturday Night Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former UWF/Mid-South Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former SMW Play-By-Play Announcer
 * Former XFL Play-by-Play Announcer

Catchphrases
Jim Ross is famous for his vintage catchphrases, which he has used much to the delight of fans throughout his career. These include "[wrestler] is gettin' whipped like a government mule", "this match is gonna be bowling shoe ugly", and his personal favorite and most widely used "(This one's gonna be) a slobberknocker". Recently, he has added a new routine not to his calling of the matches, but his announcement of the weekly Skittles advertisements that show up during RAW. In these, he will get extremely excited and exclaim "Monday Night Raw is brought to you by, fruity! Delicious!  Delicious!  FRUITY!  FRUITY!  Oh, (Bah gawd), they're fruity!  FRUITY!  Skittles!" A few other catchphrases JR has are "business is about to pick up", "he's running like a scalded dog", and, the unforgettable, "GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!" Some other popular statements from him in earlier matches are:


 * He is the greatest Phenom in the history of this organization (about the Undertaker - after he defeated Kane in the first ever Inferno match).


 * This man is the measuring stick for all of our WWE superstars and the most respected athlete in the history of our business (about the Undertaker - when he had a match with Johnny Nitro in Iraq to entertain the troops, after "Nitro got an education at the hands of the master" in JR's words).


 * The toughest s.o.b. in the WWE (about Stone Cold Steve Austin).


 * You call that an ass-whipping! (when Stone Cold Steve Austin beat Eric Bishoff)

Awards

 * World Wrestling Entertainment
 * WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2007)
 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter
 * WON Hall of Fame (inducted in 1999)
 * Best Television Announcer (1988-1993, 1998-2001, 2006)