Ross comments on the news that Jack Swagger has signed with Bellator MMA. He’s happy for Swagger and he hopes he has a long, successful MMA career. He believes Swagger’s success will depend on his eagerness to get back in wrestling room and get himself into top notch shape, but he assumes Swagger will do exactly that. He also urges Swagger to hire good striking coach.

He points out that this week marks the 12th anniversary of Eddie Guerrero’s death, and he sorely misses him. When he worked as WWE’s Head of Talent Relations he’d often have chats with Guerrero, who could be moody from time to time. Those talks meant the world to Ross, and he looks back on them fondly. He says Guerrero was a spectacular performer who loved the business and his family.

Ross welcomes Chris Jericho to the show.

Ross informs that he’s going to be a guest on the upcoming Jericho Cruise and Jericho mentions that business is really starting to pick up as of late. He believes the cruise will sell out, but he’s more worried about building this into an annual event that fans can look forward to each year. He points out that this is an all inclusive event which also gives you the chance to meet and socialize with some of wrestling’s biggest names.

Ross asks Jericho if Vince McMahon knew about his upcoming match against Kenny Omega before it was officially announced. Without getting into the fine details, Jericho says that he’d never jeopardize his relationship with McMahon by surprising him with this news.

Some fans might think McMahon is an evil warlord but that’s simply not the case at all. A healthy wrestling industry is great for McMahon and for his employees, and McMahon knows that Jericho’s always going to be a WWE guy who just couldn’t say no to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Jericho considers this match to be similar to the recent McGregor/Mayweather bout, and it appears that a lot of people are having a hard time believing that it’s actually going to happen. Jericho thinks NJPW underestimated the impact of his match’s announcement worldwide, and he’s currently working on making the show available on PPV in North America.

Jericho says he has never watched a Kenny Omega match before, but he’s going to start watching them now so he can start to put some ideas together for their match. He’s not concerned with people who say that he might not be able to keep up with Omega in the ring, because he’s been in the business for 27 years and has 17 years experience working as a main event talent in the biggest promotion in the world. He knows how to tell a story, and he knows he’ll be able to tell a good one with Omega.

Ross welcomes Dave Bautista to the show for part one of his interview.

Ross points out that Bautista has been very busy with various movie roles over the past couple of years. Bautista agrees that he’s been busy, but he says that he doesn’t consider the action roles to be his strength at all. He actually considers dramatic acting to be his strength, but he has a hard time locking down those roles due to his muscular build. Nonetheless, he considers himself very lucky and he notes that the big action roles are “…definitely paying the bills”.

Bautista says that he was nearly 30 years old and didn’t have a dime to his name before he decided to give professional wrestling a try. He looks back at his OVW class with Brock Lesnar, Shelton Benjamin and John Cena, and he’s very thankful for the opportunity he was given. Ross says that OVW class has produced multiple future Hall of Famers.

Bautista informs that he was a very introverted individual and professional wrestling forced him to come out of his shell somewhat. He says that his quiet, shy nature actually got him in trouble backstage from time to time. Ross points out that people would sometime ask him, “What’s up with this Bautista dude?”, and Ross would tell them, “He’s just quiet”. He’d also sarcastically tell them that Bautista’s a monster and he’s going to make everyone money, so they shouldn’t worry about his quietness.

Bautista admits that he wasn’t really ready when he was brought into WWE. He recalls Triple H telling him to choose three moves that he does really well, and do them over and over. Those three moves are going to be his bread and butter, and that’s where he’s going to make his money. He also says that Flair always answered any questions he had, and there were some occasions when he had an awful lot of questions.

Bautista had a chip on his shoulder at WrestleMania 23, because he felt that he and The Undertaker were robbed of the main event position. Shawn Michaels and John Cena ended up closing that show, but he thinks he and Undertaker stole the show that night.

Ross asks Bautista what his favourite match is. He says he really liked his Hell in A Cell match at No Mercy against Triple H, however, his favourite match has to be a house show match he had in Mexico against Rey Mysterio Jr.

Bautista says that he couldn’t get a grip on the fans during his most recent WWE run. They’d chant for CM Punk almost every night even though he walked out on them and the company. They’d also chant for Daniel Bryan nearly every segment and would say that he was being held down. Contrarily, Bryan was living his dream and making millions of dollars doing so. He says the whole run was just weird.

That sums up today’s episode of The Ross Report. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!