Bruce Prichard recently talked about a wide range of topics on his Something To Wrestle With podcast.
During it, the longtime WWE executive reflected on the reaction of Jim Ross to being moved from Raw to Smackdown as an announcer as part of the 2008 Draft.
“We didn’t tell anybody [who was being drafted] and wanted a genuine reaction, which we got. [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.’
“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.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc
