WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross recently spent some time talking about Big Cass, SmackDown Live being a better show than RAW and more. Featured below are some of the highlights.
On talents doing basically the same match in every promotion lately: “I watch a lot of wrestling and here’s what I’m thinking: I’m thinking that too many talents are doing the same basic match today as they had a year ago. Too many damn people are using the same sequencing, the same movesets leading into other movesets. And it’s repetitive, and it’s predictable, and sometimes it’s illogical. That’s where you’ve got guys saying, ‘well, I’ve got to get my s–t in.’ Guess what. If you’ve got to get your s–t in, that’s what it probably is, s–te.”
On SmackDown Live being a better show than RAW: “In general, SmackDown Live, maybe it’s that extra hour that you get to deal with on RAW, I don’t know, but I think that it’s SmackDown, which seems to me is the better of the two shows more weeks than not. Not always, but more weeks than not. And I think that extra hour [has] a lot to do with my enjoyment because after three hours, it’s challenging for anything for three hours.”
On Big Cass: “I like Cass. Look, he’s seven feet tall, folks! You can’t teach that! I actually said that in a meeting one time at the [WWE] Performance Center in Orlando [Florida], in a meeting. I’ll tell that story one of these days, but it’s a good deal. And you can’t teach that. And the WWE has always coveted size because every great promoter knows that people get their heads turned by size. Why in the hell else would a fat lady in a circus sell a ticket? Because of her size and freakishness. So he’s seven feet and he’s being provided valuable TV time, folks. No doubt. You know what I say, you’d better damn sure maximize your minutes, so what this kid [has] got to do in my opinion is to continue to be aggressive. I don’t need a seven-footer on the roster who’s a finesse guy, a style guy. Like I said, I don’t need… I can use the basketball analogy because basketball’s ongoing. I need a [power forward] of a [center] from Big Cass, not a [shooting guard].”
On Big Cass needing to work on his promos and other parts of his overall package: “I need physicality, but he also needs work on his delivery. That’s out of the ring practice. In your car, at home, in front of a mirror, wherever you are, make sure that you are seeing what you’re saying. Look at your face when you say these things. And I think he needs to work on his promos sounding a little more organic, not memorized. And sometimes, because you have to memorize them by and large, it’s hard to not sound memorized. So you don’t want it to sound like a script, by the way. But I’ll tell you, being seven feet tall is an asset for him. He [has] got a great look. I have confidence that he’ll be a star, but he [has] got to fill some holes in his game and that’s a daily effort, daily plan. And I don’t know the kid well enough to say what his daily plan is or what they’re doing with him behind-the-scenes to work on some of these issues, but, again, you can’t teach that. He’s seven feet tall. He’s young and a good looking kid.”
Check out the complete episode of The Ross Report podcast Player.fm.
