Steve Carrier on October 31, 2017
Ross opens today’s show speaking about the recent WWE releases. He says that Emma is a fundamentally sound performer and whatever problems she may have, she’s still young enough to fix them and make her way back to WWE if that’s what she wants to do. The same can be said for both Summer Rae and Darren Young.
He feels bad for those three individuals but this type of thing happens to all of us, and he hopes they all put their work boots on and get back into the game instead of hanging their heads and complaining on social media.
Ross says he was able to watch an early screening of Ric Flair’s upcoming 30 for 30 documentary and it really had an impact on him. It was an emotional journey and some of the stories told on the documentary upset him, partially because he was a part of some of them and he’s not proud of that. Nonetheless, Flair’s recent health issues have made him take better care of himself and he’s thankful for that.
Ross says he was excited to hear about WWE’s plans for the 25th anniversary of RAW. He hopes to receive a call and he mentions that it’d be great to potentially work with Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler again. In either event, he’d love to just travel to New York and spend some time with a lot of his old friends because he cherishes those moments now, perhaps more than ever.
He says he really enjoyed the recent Twitter war between Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho. Ross thinks there’s a method behind this madness and he assumes we’ll eventually see a match between these two men. He says that Jericho versus Omega at WrestleKingdom in the Tokyo Dome would be a massive event.
Ross welcomes Jeremy Borash to the show.
Borash mentions that he’s very excited about Impact’s upcoming Bound for Glory event. Bound for Glory is Impact’s version of the Super Bowl, and amazing things always happen on these shows. They will have a good audience for this event and the performers are excited to put on an exciting show.
Ross says the Impact Title match between Eli Drake and Johnny Impact has a chance to steal the show. Borash agrees and says that Drake has really come into his own over the last year and he has been heavily influenced by The Rock. He says that Johnny Impact is arguably the most in demand performer on the indie scene right now and he has been a fantastic addition to the Impact roster.
Borash points out that Gail Kim’s bout on this show will be the final match of her illustrious career. He has had the chance to work with her for a long time and they’ve developed a great friendship so this is going to be vey difficult for him. Ross says that the business is really going to miss Gail Kim because she’s definitely one of the top female talents of all time.
Ross welcomes Mick Foley to the show.
Foley mentions that he recently held an eBay auction with all proceeds going to the Puerto Rico disaster relief effort. He was amazed by how many wrestlers came forward offering something for the auction such as Chris Jericho, Seth Rollins, The Rock and more. They managed to raise over $20,000.
Ross mentions that it’s been nearly 20 years since the iconic Hell in A Cell match between Foley and The Undertaker. Foley can hardly believe it’s been that long, but he’s planning a 20 city North American tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that match. He hopes that he can recruit Ross for a couple of those shows and he also hopes to secure The Undertaker and Jerry Lawler for some of the shows as well.
Foley informs that he has finally accepted how big of a roll that match played in his career. Unfortunately the bout certainly took a physical toll on him as well. He was diagnosed with a concussion and was in the hospital for several hours that night after the match, and he says he wasn’t ‘right’ for months after that night.
Ross recalls really going to bat for Foley prior to his debut in WWE. Ross was convinced that Foley could help WWE and McMahon finally gave in, partially because he assumed Foley would fail and this would show Ross that working as the head of talent relations could be a thankless job. Foley certainly didn’t fail, and the Mankind character played a major role in swinging the Monday Night Wars in WWE’s favour.
Foley points out that it’s often been said that performers can’t truly advance in the WWE until McMahon gets behind you. Foley thought he did good stuff with Undertaker after debuting in WWE, but he doesn’t think McMahon really got behind him as a character until he started to introduce the real life story of Mick Foley into the fold. After the infamous series of sit down interviews with Ross, McMahon really took a liking to Foley and his career saw a major boost.
Foley says that he and Shawn Michaels always had a mutual respect for each other and they got along fine, but they were never real close friends. Three months ago Foley received a text from Michaels out of the blue after getting Foley’s number from a friend at the Performance Centre. The NXT trainees were watching footage of those sit down interviews and Michaels had to personally text Foley to tell him how amazing they were. Apparently Michaels hadn’t seen them when they originally aired over 20 years ago.
Foley also mentions that he recently received a text from Vince McMahon, informing him that his son has been doing a great job as a part of WWE’s creative team. Foley knows that working for the creative team is a thankless job, so he’s proud of his son for pursuing his dream of writing for WWE.
That sums up today’s episode of The Ross Report. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!
October 31, 2017 11:08 pm
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