Jim Ross Discusses Coming Back to Announcing After His Bell’s Balsy Attack at WrestleMania 15, Explains How Stone Cold Steve Austin Became Angry When He Was Booked in a Midcard Tag Team Match During the Attitude Era

– As previously reported, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross recently appeared on Sam Roberts’ wrestling podcast in December. Below are some additional highlights (transcript via WrestlingInc.com) from the show, with Ross discussing returning to the announcing booth at WrestleMania 15 and how he dealt once with an angry Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Jim Ross on believing his return to call the main event at WrestleMania 15 could’ve been it for his announcing career: “I really believed that return at WrestleMania there in Philly with Austin and The Rock. They requested me, Sam, and here’s the bottom line: But I don’t know. I’m just always honored if those guys think so much of my work, but Austin and The Rock were two of the guys I signed, two of the guys I brought into WWE, helped bring in. I wasn’t a one-man band here, by the way. But out of respect, and they knew my situation: my mother had died and it triggered another attack, a Bell’s Palsy attack. Then I was on the bench from December till WrestleMania. So, again, I really lost my game. I thought I looked bad, people are going to look at me like I’m a freak, and I thought, this was before podcasting, maybe I could find something in radio, so audible job where they wouldn’t have to look at my grotesque face. So it was a tough day, man.”

Ross on how the Attitude Era was very competitive: “We had a very competitive group. Everybody wanted to be the top dog. Everybody took pride in being the guy. I booked Austin one time in a tag match to give him a break on a Saturday night before TV, a Sunday night, excuse me, on the west coast. I put him in a tag match at Vince’s suggestion and I put him on right before intermission. So he goes out and gets to the town and Blackjack Lanza is the road agent, so Lanza calls me on the phone, which was very common, go over the plans for the night creatively on the live events, and he goes, ‘I’ve got Austin here for you.’ He handed Austin the phone and after he got done over modulating on my phone and cussing, I figured out that A) he didn’t like tag matches and B) he couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t going on last. And I said, ‘well, I thought the tag match would give you something of a break instead of carrying the whole load and going on before intermission would get you on the road earlier.’ I said, ‘you’ve got a big night at RAW the next night and it’s an early night because we’re on west coast time.’ And he gave me, ‘man, I worked my entire G.D. life for this, to be a top guy, and not have to do that and I want to go on last. That’s what top guys do.’ And that was him! That was the way some talents were. And by the way, I unbooked the tag and put him on last.”