The Jim Ross Report Recap w/ Angelina Love – Survivor Series Thoughts, Rousey’s Seamless Transition, Learning from Billy Gunn, More!

Ross opens today’s show by sharing his thoughts on last Sunday’s Survivor Series PPV. He thought the Ronda Rousey/Charlotte match was amazing, adding that both women showed great facial expressions, timing, and body english. He thought the emotion and storytelling here was terrific, adding that this was the most aggression, intensity and physicality he’s ever seen in a women’s match.
Ross credits Brock Lesnar and Daniel Bryan for their work in the main event as well. He thought these two men crafted a great wrestling match that suspended his disbelief. It felt real and despite the huge size difference this match was believable. He thought the announce team could have held out from time to time to allow Paul Heyman’s ringside soundbites to shine through. Ross is interested to see how Bryan moves forward as a full blown heel.

Ross points out that he’s seeing more and more dives during matches, and he feels the need to address this again. He points out that dives are dangerous and not always necessary. The less performers use dives, the more they mean.
Ross comments on the Nick Gage/David Arquette death match from this past weekend. He points out that Arquette doesn’t need to be in a match of that nature, and the booker/promoter should have never put him in that match. He notes that he’s met Arquette and he’s a nice guy, but those death matches have no rhyme or reason and he hopes Arquette never wrestles another death match again.

Getting back to Survivor Series, Ross says he loved the Buddy Murphy/Mustafa Ali match but he just wishes he “gave a damn” about it. He doesn’t watch 205 Live regularly so there’s no emotional investment there. He doesn’t think that’s going to change until those performers are showcased on Raw or Smackdown, adding that there’s lots of good cruiserweight talent not being showcased right now.

Moving on to NXT Takeover, Ross says he wants to thank all the guys in the War Games match for their work ethic. He thought the match was a little bit too orchestrated at times and it also ran a little long in his opinion, but he liked the match and he hopes they do it again because it’s a great attraction match.
A listener writes into the show asking about the rise of the women’s division. Ross thinks there’s a simple explanation for the rise of women’s wrestling; the women are connecting with the audience better than most of the men at this point. He points out that he cares about the Becky Lynch, Charlotte characters. Ronda Rousey was a made star when she got to WWE so that always helps, but there’s still lots of untapped potential in the division in the likes of Asuka for example.

Ross welcomes Angelina Love to the show
Love mentions that she can remember “Macho Man” Randy Savage hitting the top rope elbow drop on Ricky Steamboat when she was a little girl and she was blown away by that. The Macho Man character really stood out to her as well and that drew her to the business as a young girl.
She was living in Toronto, Canada as a teenager and wanted to start wrestling. She wasn’t even aware of the indie scene in the area back, then but after discovering this she did a photo shoot and sent out feelers to a bunch of promotions. She got busy around the indie scene in Toronto and began training with Eric Young for a few weeks.

She wasn’t sure the business was for her and she was pretty beat up from training, but after stopping for a few weeks she started to miss it and started training again. This time around things started to come more naturally to her.
After spending some time with WWE developmental she felt like she was ready to be on tv. She was called up for a couple of storylines that didn’t pan out and that was disappointing, but it all worked out for the better as she went to TNA and was part of The Beautiful People, which she believes was meant to be all along. She had so much fun at that time, noting that their segments were the highest rated segments on Spike TV most weeks.

She informs that she learned a lot from Kipp Sopp (Billy Gunn) during this period, as he was part of The Beautiful People for quite some time as well. She notes that he’s a funny guy who still trains like he’s 20. Ross adds that Sopp is legitimately 6’5” and an alpha male in every sense of the word at anything he does.
Love thinks Rousey has done great since transitioning to professional wrestling. She points out that it’s hard to come from the MMA world, where you’re trained to go all out at all times. Then you transition to the wrestling world where you have to learn to hold back. Ross thought Rousey worked her ass off last Sunday and he felt bad for her when she was booed after the match. That didn’t make any sense to him at all.

Love says she’s so happy for Becky Lynch, who’s hot as hell right now. She notes that this kind of connection with the audience is special and doesn’t happen often. Ross hopes WWE lets it develop naturally instead of forcing her to be a heel. Love points out that Lynch is the Stone Cold “babyface heel” at this point.
That sums up this week’s episode of The Jim Ross Report. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!