Steve Carrier on November 29, 2017
Ross welcomes Santana Garrett to the show.
Garrett informs that she had a terrific time participating in the Mae Young Classic. Ross mentions that he was very impressed by her in that tournament and he had a great time calling the action in that tournament as well. He showed up to that booking in Orlando prepared to treat it like just another gig, but after speaking to all the women individually and seeing how much passion they all had, he knew he was a part of something important and he became enthralled in the action.
He congratulates Garrett on her rise through the indie ranks as of late, but he warns her to take care of her money because taxes never stop and eventually your wrestling career will. Garrett mentions that she’s taking care of her money and luckily she has another income to fall back on. She studied sleep medicine and works in that field, but she admits that she has focused a lot more of her time on wrestling recently.
Garrett mentions that things have come a long way on the indies in terms of booking possibilities as well as financial payoffs. She recalls working for experience early on in her career and she’d be paid pickles – literally, she was paid a jar of pickles. Nowadays, she’s grateful to be earning more than that and she never takes that for granted.
Ross points out that if anyone is interested in booking Santana you can reach her at santanabookings@gmail.com.
Ross welcomes Jerry Lawler to the show for part two of his interview.
Ross asks Lawler if he was able to watch Ric Flair’s 30 for 30 documentary. Lawler informs that he did watch it and he enjoyed it overall. However, he wasn’t a fan of the animation that persisted throughout the documentary, and he also thought that the documentary presented Flair in a negative light. He says that Flair is a great guy and he really likes him, but if you didn’t know Flair, this documentary would make you think that he wasn’t a very nice person.
Lawler says that anytime Flair is around media people he’s ‘on’, and the Ric Flair character becomes his natural personality. For this reason, Lawler believes that the filmmakers may have gotten the wrong impression of Flair, and then portrayed him negatively in the film because of that.
Ross asks Lawler about his favourite WrestleManias. Lawler mentions that he loved calling WrestleMania 23, with Donald Trump and Vince McMahon bearing the majority of the promotional weight of that event. Ross and Lawler also agree that WrestleMania 18 in Toronto was very special as Hulk Hogan squared off against The Rock.
The thing that made the Hogan/Rock match so special in Lawler’s mind, is that once the crowd started to show their appreciation for Hogan, The Rock willingly switched roles and sided more heavily in the heel role. Lawler gained a lot of respect for Rock that night due to his willingness to act on the fly and switch roles in order to make the match more memorable for everyone.
Ross and Lawler both admit that they hated attending WWE’s production meetings prior to television tapings. After some time, Lawler convinced McMahon that his commentary was better when he could react on the fly without knowing what was coming. McMahon agreed and let Lawler skip the meetings from that point on.
One of Lawler’s biggest pet peeves in the business today is that wrestling promotions have let in-ring moves become more important than storylines. Lawler says they’d never let moves become more important than the storylines back in the day because they needed to sell tickets every week. They needed captivating stories in order to keep fans invested from one week to the next, and he thinks they accomplished that in Memphis because they averaged 8,000 fans at each show over a 20-year period in Memphis.
Lawler mentions that he has a podcast now entitled, ‘Dinner With the King’. He was always hesitant about being a guest on other people’s podcasts and he never thought he’d ever have his own.
That sums up this week’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!
November 29, 2017 12:38 am
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