WWE Hall Of Fame announcer Jim Ross appeared on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani to discuss his upcoming MMA broadcasting debut for the BattleGrounds MMA pay-per-view in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which takes place on October 3rd.
Below are highlights from the interview.
On how he received the offer to announce the upcoming BattleGrounds MMA event:
“The folks at BattleGrounds are Oklahoma-based guys. They contacted me and asked if I had an interest. I think they followed me on Twitter and know I have an interest in a lot of things. Doing play-by-play of an MMA event was a bucket list thing for me. It’s a new challenge, a new gig, a new opportunity. We were able to work it out. I suggested, I thought Chael would be a great partner. I’ve worked with a lot of explosive, controversial broadcasters in my day, including former Gov. Jesse Ventura, Jerry Lawler, Paul Heyman and many others. It felt right. I felt we’d have good chemistry. I don’t know. It may be a train wreck, but I assure you, it won’t be boring.”
On if he’ll be doing more MMA announcing after the October 3rd event:
“I don’t want to do it if I can’t be good at it. I respect the genre immensely. I’ll always be my own worst critic. If I don’t think I can do a great job, or at least evolve into doing a great job, I’d rather let someone else have the chair. Right now, it’s a one-time hit.”
On how he plans to approach partnering with Chael Sonnen during the broadcast:
“I’m a story teller and Chael’s the expert. I’m the point guard. I’ll ask questions and call the action. I’m not taking it for granted, but I think that I’m mentally ready to do it. I’m a big fan. I watch hours and hours of MMA. When you come from my background as a broadcaster, I listen intently to everyone, the UFC guys, I’m a big fan of Mauro Ranallo from Strikeforce, I listen to everybody and that will be good.”
On the one-night Welterweight tournament scheduled for the BattleGrounds MMA PPV:
“A tournament is episodic by nature. You’ve got a fight, the winner advances, the loser is done, easy concept to follow. You bring the stories forward. It’s no different from the millions of dollars generated by March Madness. You lose, you’re done. You win, you continue. It lends itself to story telling. There’s the story about the condition of the fighters. There’s so many things you can talk about that you have to be careful not to be bogged down on the back story and address what’s on the monitor or on TV.”
You can check out JR’s complete appearance on The MMA Hour by going to MMAFighting.com.
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