AXS TV announced that former WWE announcer Jim Ross will join AXS TV’s “New Japan Pro Wrestling” as its play-by-play commentator. Ross will join former UFC Heavyweight Champion Josh Barnett to call the action starting Friday, March 4th.
Via the AXS TV press release:
A WWE Hall of Famer, Ross was known as the voice of WWE for nearly two decades, bringing his incomparable broadcasting talent to hundreds of TV and pay-per-view broadcasts for the organization. No stranger to New Japan Pro Wrestling, Oklahoma native Ross also called the first-ever, live English-language broadcast of NJPW with Wrestle Kingdom 9 in 2015.
“I’m excited to join the AXS TV team in presenting the amazing athletes of the New Japan Pro Wrestling brand,” said Ross. “I’m a major fan of NJPW and look forward to joining Josh Barnett to form the best broadcast team in the genre. Business just picked up!”
Ross replaces Mauro Ranallo who departed the broadcast team to join the WWE and its Smackdown broadcast team as it moved to the USA Network from SyFy.
Payout Take: You may recall that Ross was dismissed by the WWE after an incident during a sponsored panel talk at Summerslam in 2013. Ross was the fall guy for an obvious inebriated Ric Flair during a panel discussion for WWE 2k14. The WWE announced that Ross was retiring but its clear that that was not the real reason. Since then, Ross has started his own podcast, called an MMA event with Chael Sonnen as well as Wrestle Kingdom 9 in 2015. Ross should be a very good addition to the popular show which airs on Friday nights.
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