Jim Ross wasn’t a fan of the WWE Draft back in 2008.
On the latest edition of his “Something To Wrestle With Bruce Prichard,” former longtime WWE executive and on-air personality known as Brother Love reflected on the reaction behind-the-scenes to ‘Good Ole’ J.R.’ being drafted from Raw to SmackDown.
“We didn’t tell anybody [who was being drafted] and wanted a genuine reaction, which we got,” he said. “[JR was like] ‘I ain’t happy about this by God. I’m gonna talk to somebody later on.’ So JR was none too happy. Again, you get the real emotion. It’s not a rib. It’s nothing else. It’s actually just something to get a true, passionate emotion from someone versus a phony, ‘Ah, well, here comes ‘SmackDown.’”
Prichard continued, “It was true. He was disappointed. He was a part of ‘Raw.’ He did see himself as the foundation of ‘Raw.’ And yes, we were looking to shake things up. That was why the move was made. Just shake things up. Make it different. And changing the lead play-by-play and commentators was one way of doing that to give the show different energy, to give the shows [a] different feel. I think if he had known, I believe that the reaction would not have been nearly as good.”
Check out the complete episode of the show at AdFreeShows.com. H/T to WrestlingInc.com for transcribing the above quotes.
