An Extensive Major Backstage Update On Jim Ross To SD! Published by Ryan Clark on 06/30/2008 at 07:09 PM
According to a new report, the decision to move Jim Ross to the Smackdown brand announce team and move Michael Cole over to Raw was more so done to humiliate Ross and was hardly considered a "business move" backstage. Several WWE sources backstage have indicated that Vince McMahon getting to humiliate Ross on live TV was amusing to him since Ross made it very clear that he didn't want to move brands.
Ross currently has around a year and a half left on his current WWE contract and the move to Smackdown made him very upset, so much so that he was considering quitting that night and passed on an opportunity to fly on the WWE corporate jet to the Smackdown tapings last Tuesday in Houston. Ross also issued an emotional blog on his website and later apologized with a new one later that day.
It's no secret that it has been a running joke within WWE with McMahon taking Ross off Raw as it has been done dozens of times before. Usually the way things operate is that the move is looked at as permanent and then McMahon gets frustrated and ultimately brings him back. Of course, there is a line backstage within WWE that they have always been about "youth" and "pretty faces" and with Jerry Lawler at 58 and Ross at 56, many see it as easier to blame the ages of the announcers on the product being stale instead of bad decisions made such as problems in developmental or cutting off rising stars and instead blaming the announcers for not getting them over to the audience.
It is also reportedly already being joked about backstage how long it will take McMahon to change his mind and bring Ross back to Raw when ratings drop again. The running joke is that every time McMahon decides to pull Ross from Raw, the only two people who actually believe the move will last a long time is McMahon and Ross when most know it will never stay that way long. It should be noted that the recent Mike Adamle hire was done to have Adamle eventually replace Ross, but as many have seen that has turned into a disaster. Other talk last year had Michael Cole calling both Raw and Smackdown and phasing out Ross after his Hall of Fame speech in 2007. Any talk of Cole taking over for Ross was halted in Chicago when Ross was announced for the Hall of Fame and the reaction was huge, stunning many people within WWE.
As reported on earlier, none of the announcers were told ahead of time if they would be drafted and were anticipating the announcement just like the live audience was. A few former WWE staff members have stated recently that Ross should have understood how Vince McMahon's mind works and that by Ross publicly stating he wanted to stay on Raw it would almost become a guarantee that he would be moved because of how McMahon likes to humiliate him. One issue Ross spoke about himself in moving to Smackdown is going from the "live" to "taped" environment. As it has been done for quite some time, announcers for Smackdown call the show live at the tapings on Tuesday and then head to Stamford, CT at WWE Headquarters on Wednesday to clean up any errors. So with Ross living in Oklahoma City, having an extra day on the road will make his schedule even busier. Ross did state on his website however that he would not go to Stamford to do this.
It should be noted that there is always the issue with Ross and Mike Adamle both being believed to be making the same amount of money (roughly around $300,000 per year - although I'm sure Ross will either dispute or refuse to comment on this number if he reads this report), despite the fact that Ross has been announcing since the late 1970s and has been regarded as the best in the business for more than two decades. Adamle coming from a "real sports" background and with a time as an NFL announcer for NBC, it was going to take a good amount of money to get him to work in pro wrestling, while Ross gladly works in the business with no issues at all. However, many feel this recent move by WWE had little if anything to do with Smackdown moving to MyNetwork TV later this year and needed more star power along with a solid announcing team. Many see Ross moving to Smackdown as a demotion no matter how it is spun after having a long role as the lead announcer for the company's flagship program on Monday night's.
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