Steve Carrier on February 8, 2019
Ross opens today’s show by sharing some thoughts on last week’s RAW and Smackdown Live. He thought the women had a great showing on RAW again this week. Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey were forces to be reckoned with again, and all the women made the best of the creative given to them.
Ross says he wasn’t a fan of the Kurt Angle storyline on RAW. On a more positive note, he says he’s a big fan of The Revival. In fact, he likes all four of the teams that worked in the 4 corners tag match, but he thinks there’s too much comedy happening within that tag team division right now.
It was reported this past week that Seth Rollins is home nursing a back injury. Ross hopes Rollins takes care of himself, and notes that today’s performers have to slow down, and if they’re not going to slow down at work WWE has to send them home to make sure they rest and recover.
WWE seems to be building some tension between Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar lately. Ross says he’d like to see that match but WWE needs to build Lashley up more to get him to Lesnar’s level. Ross notes that Lio Rush is very talented, but as a manager his bumps should be protected so when he does bump it really means something for the babyface.
Ross really liked the opening to Smackdown Live this week, with Becky Lynch and Triple H facing off. He thought this was excellent creative and terrific execution by the talent. This was a hot start to the show that drove social media interaction and got fans buzzing in the arena.
He thought Tuesday was another good night for Samoa Joe, and notes that he’d like to see a match between Joe and Lesnar. He wonders whether most fans would rather see that match than Lashley/Lesnar right now.
Ross welcomes Madison Rayne to the show.
Rayne informs that she’s currently balancing being a mom and a professional wrestler. Her wrestling career actually offers more freedom compared to most 9-5 jobs because she’s able to work as much as she wants while focusing on being a mother.
Rayne informs that she went into her first few years at TNA completely blind to the nuances of the wrestling business. She was just an indie wrestler with a dream at that point, and luckily she was thrown right in with The Beautiful Prople, an established group, and that really helped her.
Ross asks her if she prefers working as a heel or a babyface. Rayne says she loved working as a heel the first several years of her career, but she’s flipped back and forth since. Being a heel came pretty naturally to her.
Rayne notes that it’s a great time to be a woman in wrestling. She says that females in the business should not take the opportunities presented to them today for granted. Each woman in the business needs to take advantage of this not only for themselves but for future generations as well.
Ross sends a special congratulations out to The Hart Foundation on their announced induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart and Jimmy Hart will all be inducted and Ross says those three guys created some magic with that faction and raised the bar of tag team wrestling at that time.
Ross welcomes Cody Rhodes to the show.
Ross asks Cody about expectations for their upcoming Double or Nothing show. Cody says they’ve prepared their venue for 11,600 people, but they may be able to open up a few more seats. They were joking amongst themselves that they called the event Double or Nothing but they couldn’t find a venue with 20,000 seats. Regardless, he thinks this venue has a lot of wrestling history, and him and The Young Bucks all went to WCW ppvs there years ago. Vegas is also such a fun town so it all made sense.
Cody informs that AEW is looking for fresh talents, and talents who haven’t been seen before. There are some outliers such as Chris Jericho, but they want to find guys who aren’t universally known as well.
Cody says they wanted to give fans something exciting at their ticket release party on Thursday. They didn’t want to just stand up at a podium and say they’re having a show; they wanted to give fans something that really made them excited about Double or Nothing.
Cody also says he’s really proud of his wife, Brandi, who has been on planes flying all around the world every day scouting talent. Brandi is building a women’s division for AEW, and announced her first signing Thursday night.
Cody notes that before ALL IN, Eric Bischoff told him to make the event a “buffet” of entertainment and that really stuck with him. If they’re going to ask fans to travel and spend their hard earned money, they want to surpass their fans’ expectations and make sure they’re entertained by a variety of different measures.
That sums up today’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!
February 8, 2019 11:09 am
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