A Long Conversation With Jim Ross (Part 2)
Jim Ross (@JRsBBQ) hosts a weekly podcast. His live stand-up show hits the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ on January 23rd and the Trocodero in Philadelphia on the 25th. Part 1 of this interview — encompassing Ric Flair’s partying, CM Punk in UFC, and more — can be found here.
RG: Sting’s appearance at Survivor Series was reported on the dirt sheets days in advance, and you theorized that it may have been deliberate. Big surprises are among the most compelling aspects of the WWE narrative and this one was ruined. If you’re in the front office, how do you weigh scenarios like that where you kind of sacrifice the enjoyment of die hard fans to draw casual ones into the network free trials?
JR: You’re talking philosophies here, and the bottom line is that you want people to tune in and sample your programming on the WWE Network. I don’t know how to answer your question. I see what you’re saying. You can do that about a lot of things. We can all be contrarian. Wrestling’s like being a Monday morning quarterback, but you can do it immediately. If you’re on Twitter or whatever, social media stuff is insane. You can’t live with it, can’t live without it. It’s like being married.
I just saw it everywhere that Sting was gonna be at that show. I know Steve Borden well enough to know that he wasn’t saying anything. I think you can safely exclude him from the equation of the leak. It could be somebody internally that leaked it to make himself feel important, or it could’ve been a larger strategy. Now I’m becoming a damn conspiracy theorist, which is silly. It just seemed to be everywhere. I didn’t read about it. I wanted to be surprised.
JR: Yeah, I’m not a fan of the spoilers. I don’t like to read them. I thought about WWE advertising Sting — he’s never been in the ring for the organization and this was a chance to be a part of history — and maybe they leaked it, maybe they didn’t. I really don’t know what they did. I can see reasons for both sides. My preference is that I’ve happily subscribed to WWE Network since Day One, and I enjoy the product. But I got caught up with the same thing you did. You couldn’t avoid it! People kept tweeting at me asking about it.
RG: Have you ever seen WWE leak fake stuff to the dirt sheets to keep everyone on their toes?
JR: I’ve never been in a meeting where we discussed doing that. That comes back to the conspiracy theory genre that I could find myself in very easily. I’d rather not be there. I don’t know, man. I could see value in leaking Sting and getting a buzz and making sure people tuned in for the free trial, and I can also see the preference of being surprised. I don’t know what the right answer is. It’s rolled into the same idea of providing the podcast between Stone Cold and Mr. McMahon on WWE Network the day after the free trial expired. That interview was very entertaining. I watched it in its entirety after watching Raw for three hours.
RG: I did as well.
JR: I was invigorated by it. It was very good television. I felt I got my money’s worth for the month just based on that.
RG: One of the segments from that Austin/McMahon interview that had a big ripple effect was the dichotomy of Vince saying that no one since Cena has really reached for the “brass ring,” but also that the talent “should not piss anybody off.” In my opinion, the endeavor to innovate as an independent performer requires a willingness to take risks without fear of retribution. Did you also see this as a contradiction?
JR: I thought that the “don’t piss anybody off” remark was tongue-in-cheek. I thought it was satirical.
RG: You know him better than I do, obviously. I thought he meant it seriously. You think he was joking?
JR: I think he was having a little fun there with that remark. The basic message not to piss anybody off is to do right. Don’t give us any reason not to be able to trust or rely on you. You’ve gotta be responsible and trustworthy. Don’t do anything that’s gonna upset that feeling or make us think we can’t depend on a guy. I think that talents should be more assertive. If you’re a ballplayer — and I look at these guys more as athletes than entertainers — you want to be a starter. Nobody wants to be on an NFL team and ride the bench. Everybody wants to contribute. They realize their careers are short and they want to earn more money.
I always thought that you had to challenge athletes to up their game, and work on their bodies, stamina, and interview skills. Continue to reinvent yourself as best you can. Be hungry to take the guy above you’s spot, and don’t let the guy below you do that to you. If you don’t want to headline WrestleMania — I don’t blame CM Punk for wanting that — why would you want anybody on your roster that didn’t have the same goal?
JR: I don’t think McMahon was out to piss off everyone that works for him about not being aggressive and reaching for the brass ring. I think part of it was tongue-in-cheek — maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how I felt when I watched the interview. There’s no doubt that John Cena has outperformed, outhustled, and made himself more available than anyone in recent memory at that company. I don’t remember anybody — and I signed John Cena — that I’ve seen or been around that’s worked any harder to contribute in every aspect that he can.
When Vince said John Cena was the last guy to reach for that brass ring, I don’t know what his definition of that is. Is it becoming a star? Is it becoming a mega star? Is it simply trying to be a star? I don’t know exactly what McMahon meant by that. Anybody can reach, but it’s another thing to grab it and turn brass into gold. The problem is that WWE is dangerously thin on main event depth, as is the whole business. That’s not a WWE issue. That’s a business-wide issue. One of the reasons for that is America’s starting to understand how important a role the territories played in developing talent.
RG: I think the NXT faucet is starting to flow.
JR: It has to. WWE does nothing more important in the business day than develop new stars. It’s all about talent on television. You think that Dana White signed CM Punk for any other reason than he knew he was signing a new star? He’s got a personality that’s big. Everyone needs talent. That’s why you have the NFL Draft. That’s why college football is so big. It feeds the NFL. They’re trying to find the next big thing for their roster.
RG: Back to Austin, doesn’t it seem like a no-brainer for WWE Network to run his show more regularly?
JR: I think it’s a no-brainer that you can get a lot of mileage out of Steve on the network. It’s no question he still has a huge audience. A monthly live podcast with a big guy? There’s certainly been worse ideas pissed around. I think it makes sense. Once a month would not be overexposing him. He can have a great interview with about anybody. Anything WWE can create to feature Steve Austin is probably a pretty good idea. The podcast has a lot of reach on its own. It’s a great promotional tool. There’s a lot of good in that content. Whether they continue with it remains to be seen, but I’d love to see something like that happen with him, and I think people would look forward to it as a destination on the network.
RG: I spoke about this with Austin a few months ago. Last year, Grantland’s Masked Man advocated for mandatory “offseasons” for WWE wrestlers. The idea would be that everybody on the roster would get 2-3 months off per year, that this would be staggered so that they were never left bereft of stars, and that there would be essentially a full roster for WrestleMania season. Could this work?
JR: That topic’s been brought up many times. I could see the company becoming very aware and sensitive of the amount of days on the road spent by all of its personnel — not just wrestlers. You’ve gotta be aware of how hard you’re riding your horses before you let them rest. How you arrive at that could take many shapes and forms. You might have many guys push back on the idea that they’d have to be home for three months — some would not want to do that.
I do think that you have to be very aware that your performers and athletes aren’t being driven too hard. The nature of the business is that it’s very difficult to be a part of all the travel. You don’t have many home games — you might have one or two a year. It’s like being an umpire in baseball. I am for managing dates and keeping an eye on talent to avoid getting burnt out, and letting them go home for a few weeks or a month. I don’t think you can just make a blanket statement that everyone on the roster gets at least two months a year off.
RG: The way it was described is that during their time off they might be available for a big spot on Raw doing a promo, or wrestling at a PPV, but they’d be exempt from house shows.
JR: With house shows, it’s not about the in-ring performance aspect of it so much as the travel. Wrestlers like to get in the ring. That’s part of the charm of the business. The allure of live performance is intoxicating. It’s the greatest thing in the world. You talk to a guy like The Rock, whose films have grossed over a billion dollars, and he says there’s no thrill like being in front of a live audience. It’s a whole lot more challenging and exhilarating than shooting a movie and repeating the same thing 25 times.
I just believe it’s much more complex than it was explained in the Grantland piece. You gotta water your horses. I get it! In theory, everybody is for taking care of the talents. That’s your most valuable commodity. How you then monitor their dates and your creative is important. But what happens if you’ve got a guy who gets red hot, he’s moving up the ladder rapidly, and all of a sudden he’s making more money than he’s ever made and the time is coming up on his mandatory vacation? Now what? Do you maintain your philosophy come hell or high water, or do you keep giving the fans who are shelling out for this guy’s merchandise what they want?
There’s just so many variables to that whole deal. As I said, I will agree that the wear and tear on the talent needs to be closely observed by all involved parties — including the talents. Some of the talents like to use the excuse that they don’t want to piss off the office by saying they’re hurt and jeopardize their spot. I think that’s ridiculous. Maybe back in the territory days that was run a little differently, but I just don’t see it like that now.
I know David Shoemaker and the guys at Grantland. I’ve been on their podcast. They’re very bright. I’ve read his book. I’m not disagreeing with him in theory, I just don’t know what the application of that solution would be.
RG: Austin theorized that WWE talent hasn’t unionized because the people at the top get taken care of very well, and the people in the middle well enough, and that they don’t want to sacrifice or risk anything they have in support of the bottom rung. Would you say that’s an accurate reason the workforce hasn’t unionized? Has there ever even been an attempt at it?
JR: I heard years and years ago that Jesse Ventura was interested in helping to form a wrestlers’ union, but for whatever reason it didn’t materialize. I don’t think the wrestlers will ever have a union. As an entity, they would need a lot of outside counsel and organizers. I don’t know that any of them have the background or expertise to form a union. Then you start getting into the dues, and who among your peers is going to be in charge of things. I could see an overall lack of trust in that regard.
I think Steve’s got a very good point. The guys that fight their way up to the top of the ladder and fight their way to main event status can make a tremendous amount of money — 7-8 figures a year for many years if they perform well and are durable. This is no different from the NFL on pay scale. There are levels, and WWE’s budget is akin to a salary cap. Even the lower end guys are not earning a bad living — they’re more disgruntled about their roles and the ways they’re cast than they are about the cash that they’re making.
If they’re smart with their money, a majority of the WWE guys will end up very well off at the end of their careers. It’s like Herm Edwards would say. You need one car. One watch. One gold chain. One house. One baby’s mama. One. Pro wrestlers are no different. Some of the guys from the 80’s weren’t prepared for the money they were gonna earn, and spent it like it was never gonna go away. Today, some of them are struggling mightily. They made enough to invest and save…
RG: … But they were busy buying rounds of 100 Kamikaze shots for strangers in bars.
JR: That’s one way of looking at it. The other killer in the wrestling business is that because you’re on the road a lot there are a lot of marriages that don’t survive. And then all of a sudden you’ve got multiple marriages, multiple children. All the sports leagues are like that to some degree. It’s just hard. The union thing is a regular question that comes up, and I don’t know Ryan, I just don’t have a good feeling that it’s gonna happen. If it happened and it made the business better, I’m all for it. I just don’t see the wrestlers being knowledgeable enough and giving their trust to outsiders and letting them form their union to mold their careers.
[Illustration by Evan Russell/USA Today]