Trivia / Jim Ross

• Enforced Method Acting
  • During the 2008 WWE Draft, none of the draftees were told that they'd be switching shows until just seconds before the announcement was made. Most notably seen with the announcer switch between SmackDown and Raw... the looks of confusion and anger on Michael Cole and Ross' faces as they switched chairs following the announcement of the change were completely real, and Ross actually considered retiring the day after it happened.
  • Ross was also not told that Santina's (Santino Marella in drag in order to win the WrestleMania Diva Battle Royal) secret infatuation was actually JR. When this revealed live on PPV, with Michael Cole and Lawler ribbing him for it for good measure, Ross was less than amused and did everything he could not to play along.
  • Also, Ross' announcing career; he's admitted before that he went out of his way to avoid being told the ending of a match so that his announcing would sound more natural. Even when he knew the result, he didn't know the details; when asked about possibly the most famous match he ever commentated (Mankind vs The Undertaker at King of the Ring '98) he insisted that the only thing he knew going in was "'Taker was going over". It's believed his famous call after Mick Foley went through the cage roof ("Will somebody stop the damn match?! Enough is enough!") was genuinely what he was thinking at the time.
  • Ross was intentionally left out of any beforehand knowledge of the infamous Montreal Screwjob because Vince wanted to insulate him from any blowback from the decision since Ross was head of talent relations and none of the wrestlers would trust him anymore if he had been part of the plan to screw Bret.
  • At New Japan Pro-Wrestling's G1 Special in San Francisco, Ross took an unexpected bump when Jay White Irish whipped Juice Robinson into an improperly-secured barricade, which hit Ross's commentary table and knocked him over.^note Normally, this isn't a problem because there are Young Lions at ringside to hold the barricades steady during these spots In the moment, it came off like a brilliant Kick the Dog moment on White's part, and Ross sounds understandably angry and surprised from then on...because he was angry and surprised, because that spot wasn't supposed to knock him over and he suffered legitimate minor rib injuries from it.
• Executive Meddling: Why he became the "manager" of fake Diesel and Fake Razor Ramon in a failed attempt to turn him heel. It was all a stunt by the WWF to help them successfully sue WCW and hopefully kill "The Outsiders" angle dead. Of course this didn't work on any level, as the New World Order ended up steamrolling Raw.
• Real Song Theme Tune: On those occasions when entrance music is called for, he walks out to "Boomer Sooner", the Oklahoma fight song.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The question of whether or not JR or Joey Styles are each other's Poor Man's Substitute might have been put to the test with Paul Heyman stating that JR would have called ECW One Night Stand had Joey declined or been unable to.
  • JR actually missed the Raw where Mankind defeated The Rock for the WWF title being out for medical reasons. One can only imagine how he would have called such a pivotal match.
    • JR cites this match and the Hart-HBK Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII as the two he most wished he could have called.