Jim Ross recently spoke to Grantland.com about being forced into retirement by WWE for allowing Ric Flair to hijack the WWE 2K14 Panel before the SummerSlam pay-per-view last year.
“I don’t think you have to be a Mensa member to figure out that it had an influence on decisions that were made. I was working with the developmental kids [in NXT] and enjoying that, and got called in for that job.”
“It was a very unique night, to say the least. Ric was coming off maybe the most traumatic time of his life. [Flair’s son Reid had recently died of a drug overdose.] In hindsight, it might not have been the most timely booking, to get him in that environment. And then you can look at the other side and say maybe it’s a good thing to get him out around friends. As it worked out, you’d probably lean more to the former than the latter. But here’s the deal. I was conductor of a runaway train. I was supposed to keep it on the tracks and that didn’t happen. So I don’t have any issues taking responsibility. Did I envision that it would help facilitate my exit? No. But I could see the thinking behind it.”
“But honestly, people might not believe this, and I don’t want to give one of those eye-rollers, but it really came at a good time. My health is good, I just celebrated my 62nd birthday, I got a lot of projects going. I’m going to start a podcast soon with the same company that does Austin and Jericho. I’m excited about that. I got Live Nation working with me on one-man shows and, of course, we start out the way we want to start out, in New York City, Saturday, March 1, at the Gramercy Theater.”
