Bret Hart thinks WWE has too many people telling wrestlers what to do without ever having wrestled themselves. Jim Ross has heard that argument before, and he doesn’t buy it.
Speaking on Grilling JR, Ross addressed Hart’s recent criticism of Bruce Prichard and WWE’s creative process. He didn’t question whether The Hitman truly feels that way, because Ross is convinced Bret meant every word. Ross doubled down on that point. Whether everyone agrees with Hart is another matter entirely.
“I guarantee one thing, Conrad, Bret believes what he said. He believes it in his heart. Now whether he’s right or wrong or not is up to somebody else hearing the message and agreeing or not.”
As for Prichard specifically, Ross doesn’t see Hart’s shot as anything particularly unusual. Prichard has spent years in a position where decisions and criticism inevitably find their way back to him.
“Ain’t the first time Bruce has been criticized, Conrad. He’s in a role where he will always be subjective and potentially nailed to the cross because of who he reports to and what he’s doing.”
Ross doesn’t expect that to change either: “Nothing new. It ain’t going to end.” Where Ross really disagreed with Hart was the bigger argument behind his comments. Hart had questioned WWE having people tell wrestlers how to wrestle when those people had never actually done it themselves. Asked whether someone needs to have been a professional wrestler to successfully book wrestling, Ross immediately shut that idea down.
“No, absolutely not. Not even close. That’s not even a close assumption.”
Ross has a fairly obvious reason for believing that: himself. WWE put JR into plenty of physical angles over the years, but Ross doesn’t consider those appearances proof that he was ever a wrestler. In fact, some of them still make him uncomfortable to think about.
“And in some of those skits that we did, I don’t call wrestling. I was embarrassed to do them. I still am embarrassed to think back on some of the days where I got booked into an angle.”
Ross believes those segments only worked because fans already cared about Jim Ross the announcer. It certainly wasn’t because he suddenly developed wrestling ability.
“You know, not being in shape, not being trained. The J.R. announcer character popularity was the only thing that made it work. I’m honest. It wasn’t my skills, for God’s sakes.”
None of that stopped Ross from booking wrestling. His argument is that understanding the business, its audience and how stories work matters more at that stage than whether somebody has actually taken bumps inside the ring.
“If you understand the genre and one has product knowledge, you can damn sure be a booker. I’ve booked some pretty successful cards and made some fellas a lot of money, helped them facilitate them making the money, and I never wrestled.”
That doesn’t mean Ross wants non-wrestlers controlling every detail once the story reaches the ring. This is where his position actually meets Hart somewhere in the middle. Ross believes someone can create the storyline without ever wrestling a match, but once the direction is established, experienced wrestling minds should be the ones figuring out how to make it work physically.
“Then the torch needs to go to the wrestling people to lay out the match that you envision in your mind when you created the storyline.”
That, according to Ross, is where having someone who actually wrestled becomes especially valuable. His final answer to Hart’s broader argument couldn’t have been much clearer.
“I think there’s where having a former wrestler really is all the money. It’s not creating the idea originally. It’s refining the idea that you’ve been charged to do. I don’t think you have to be a wrestler to book whatsoever.”
Hart’s original comments came while speaking to Inside The Ropes, where he compared WWE today with the freedom he had during his own career. Hart said Vince McMahon often gave wrestlers the winner and finish while allowing them to construct much of the match themselves.
That eventually led Hart to suggest WWE’s current problems may come from having “all these idiots telling people how to wrestle when they don’t know how to wrestle themselves.” He then singled out Prichard by adding, “And Bruce Prichard too, he doesn’t know.”
Ross isn’t defending every creative decision made by someone who never stepped inside a wrestling ring. His distinction is much simpler: you don’t need to know how to take a bump to come up with the story, but once it’s time to turn that story into a wrestling match, that’s when he wants the wrestlers holding the torch.
Do you agree with Jim Ross that non-wrestlers can successfully book wrestling, or does Bret Hart have a point about wrestlers needing more control? Let us know in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
