AEW announcer and Senior Advisor “Good Ole’ J.R.” Jim Ross took to an episode of his “Grilling Jr” podcast to talk about a number of topics, including coming up with WWE’s new generation philosophy in the mid-1990s.
Ross said, “Yeah, yeah. I pitched it, and I got cooperation from the rest of the guys. It’s good stuff. You know, I just believe that you can’t become one-dimensional. And what you’re looking for Conrad is, you get these guys on TV, you use them in a positive manner, and you see who gets over. If you’re given the opportunity and the TV time in a positive fashion, who’s going to get themselves over? They got their break. ‘They’re not doing anything with me. They’re not pushing me. I’m getting futured, blah, blah, blah,’ And that’s how I looked at that deal. We had talents that we should be using to see if they could get over. And if they got over, then we would win. If they don’t get over, then we move on to the next guy. And that’s kind of how Cowboy [Bill Watts] booked. That’s how Eddie Graham booked. I learned a lot from both those guys. That’s all I did was, we were one-dimensional or two-dimensional. The chemistry between Backland and Diesel, and all due respect to both guys who are friends of mine, wasn’t good. They didn’t have the chemistry, the natural chemistry, that you would like to bet on. So to me it was a no-brainer. And apparently when I made my pitch, everybody seemingly agreed that it was, well, let’s try it. And that’s kind of what I told Vince. ‘What the hell you got to lose? Why don’t we try it?’ And he agreed. And it worked and you know, Diesel got over more. Razor got over more, for example. All those guys that you mentioned had found something, they found an opportunity. They were excited about their opportunity. And so now my pitch to them was, ‘It’s up to you to get over. We’re going to put you on a platform where that’s positive.’ And you know, I looked at Shawn Michaels as another Ric Flair. Big-time talent, babyface or heel. He was just tremendous, and we weren’t using him very well. And so we changed that.”
On the challenges of Kevin Nash vs. Bob Backlund WWE Title program in 1994:
“It wasn’t going to draw a dime [but not his fault], no. Kevin’s a very bright guy, but he endured it and went with it because that was his job. But it was a horrible booking. It didn’t do him any favors whatsoever, and certainly didn’t do the business any favors whatsoever. One thing, he’s a seven-foot babyface and we had the same conundrum with Undertaker.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
