Jim Ross Recalls Being Misled When John Laurinaitis Made Play For His WWE Role

On a recent episode of his podcast, “Grilling JR,” Jim Ross discussed John Laurinaitis replacing him as WWE Head of Talent Relations. JR hired Laurinaitis in March of 2001, intending for the latter to eventually replace him in the role. Laurinaitis then maneuvered himself into the position within a year before Ross was ready to leave. Here are the highlights:

On Laurinaitis’ Intentions:

“Okay, yeah, that was a kind of a topical thing. John got bold, and didn’t try to hide his agenda. Through all that, those machinations, never once did he come to me and say, ‘You know, JR, I’d like to be in charge of talent relations. And here’s why, here’s I’m qualified, and so forth.’

“But you know, at the same time, I’ve got to say, well, I helped build this department. All those guys are on that roster that you’re seeing on television, I signed. So I got a vested interest in this deal, so I’m not ready to step away. But I know he kept pushing Vince. And he was younger, and he looked good in a suit. He had pretty teeth, and look at me, I can’t even smile. So anyhow, you know, Vince sided with John and decided it was time. And he was very nice on the whole deal. He couldn’t thank me enough for my contributions.”

On his Next Role:

“I think he made me the EVP of business strategies, or I had some title, I don’t know. It’s meaningless, didn’t matter. My money didn’t change. My hours didn’t change. I worked less hours, actually. But the payroll still had to be paid. The funny story about that is, I was still doing payroll. Vince and I got in a conversation about something. And I said, ‘Well, I gotta hop. I gotta finish payroll.’ He said, ‘What do you mean you gotta finish payroll? That’s not your job anymore.’

“I said, ‘I understand that, Mr. McMahon. But your new guy doesn’t understand that.’  It was an arduous, this mind numbing responsibility every week, there’s no off time. You cannot pay a guy, cannot pay, or screw their money, or make their checks later, whatever it may be. So it was a messy deal shouldn’t have happened.”

On the Importance of Communication:

“That is another great example — if we all communicate, no matter our differences of opinion, the situation has a way of bettering itself at some point along the way. And I was reluctant to play that game. But I did, and I guess I lost. But in any event, I was proud of our accomplishments in our department, and challenge anybody to come up with a roster and sign more stars, more now-millionaires, more now-Hall of Famers, than had done been done previously. At the end of the day, I was okay with it. I didn’t like how it went down. I thought it was misleading. I thought it showed John was a true chickens**t, which we’ve established that. So there you go.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the Grilling JR podcast with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.