Jim Ross, the Voice of the WWE, Talks Wrestling and Nashville

Jim, although no longer an announcer with the WWE Network or its affiliates, still keeps very busy and all of us entertained with his weekly podcast Ross Report. He broadcasts on television for New Japan Pro Wrestling on Mark Cuban’s AXS Network. He also has delved into calling play-by-play boxing on CBS alongside Al Bernstein in Las Vegas–not to mention he is a New York Times Best Selling Author, BBQ Sauce Extraordinaire and the National Chairman of Headlock on Hunger, an organization that he feels very passionate about.

I had the privilege of catching up with Jim right before he got ready to board a plane for Las Vegas to conduct his weekly play-by-play boxing on CBS. We discussed his one-man show and how he genuinely loves his fans and sharing his road stories, and how he is truly appreciative of all the people who made it possible:

I’m a storyteller. I enjoy my fans and it is a privilege to meet and talk with a lot of them doing performances like this. I enjoy when somebody says, “you where the voice of my childhood.” I look at that as a very humbling remark, and this just gives me the chance to give back and gives me the opportunity to interact on a very intimate and personal basis with these folks. Folks [who] are going to take their time out to come see me. I am very honored and grateful.

It’s a variety of things. I wanted to play the market for quite some time. I have always enjoyed coming to Nashville. I am an Oklahoma boy so there is a lot of country music in my roots and in my family so Nashville has always been a very important city for us country folks and I have been there so many time for WWE back in the day and always enjoyed it. I got a lot of friends that lived there, and Zanies is just a really great place to perform. I have had colleagues and other buddies who have played Zanies and spoke highly of it, so the date came available and I was available and we are going to pull the trigger and see how it rolls. I am really looking forward to it.

I am the national chairman for Headlock On Hunger. It’s a total charity–100% charity. So if I do travelling for Headlock On Hunger I do it out of my own pocket. It’s that kind of charity. Working with Eblen Charities out of Asheville is something that they thought of and they approached me about it and they told me that 20 percent of school age children when they are not in school don’t eat regularly, and I found that to be appalling, and it is something that can be solved. There is nothing worse than a hungry child. Bottomline is that we raise a lot of food and money, mainly food so these hungry kids can eat. It is as simple as that. When kids are in school, school has breakfast and lunch programs, kids eat. When they are not in school and mom is a single mom for example and she has a couple of jobs trying to make ends meet, those kids don’t eat regularly. And that is something that we all should be burdened with to do something about. So that is why I am involved with Headlock for Hunger.

Well, they got two good champions right now in Kevin Owens and AJ Style–two guys that have had really long careers to even get to the WWE, and now they have had that opportunity in their mid-thirties, and they both have made the most of their time. As I say on my podcast every week: “Maximize their time.” They are doing that, and I think both of those guys are really good.