Kevin Nash is sending his best wishes to Jim Ross ahead of his upcoming brain surgery.
Ross, 74, is scheduled to undergo a procedure in his hometown of Norman, Oklahoma, on Wednesday. Despite the surgery being just days away, the legendary announcer traveled to Minneapolis for WrestleCon during WWE SummerSlam week, where he spent some time with Nash and Jerry “The King” Lawler.
Speaking on the latest episode of his “Kliq This” podcast (see video below), Nash asked fans to keep Ross in their thoughts before reflecting on their relationship dating back to his early days in WCW.
“I got to see JR Saturday night, I got to see JR and ‘The King’ and catch up with them. JR is going in for a procedure, so everybody out there, give a prayer for JR,” Nash said.
“It’s funny because, in my career, I always say that Vince [McMahon] was the first person that ever saw anything in me. And that’s wrong because when I first signed with WCW, Jim Ross had a sports show on the radio and he would have me in studio — maybe every couple months — but he would just have me in and we’d just talk sports and talk sh*t. He saw something in me, and I look at it as, I know that Jim carried a lot of weight at WCW early. And I think he kept me employed when it came down to making cuts, I’m sure a couple of times, the early years.”
Nash then recalled a more emotional moment between himself, Ross and Lawler. Nash noted that all three have endured devastating personal losses, with Lawler losing his son Brian Christopher, Ross losing his wife Jan, and Nash losing his son Tristen.
“It was great to see him. It’s like, here’s King, JR, and Nash. And Jerry lost his son, JR lost his wife, and I lost my son. I just looked at them, I said, ‘JR, from all of the sh*t that the three of us have been through, it would have been so much easier to f**king eat a bullet or at least a handful of f**king pills to this point.’ I said, ‘But here it is, all of us four years into it, and we’re f**king still wanting to live.’”
Nash said Ross emphatically responded that he remains determined to keep going as he prepares for surgery.
“And Jim says, ‘F**k yeah. I’m getting a f**king [shunt] put into my f**king brain.’ Like, ‘Yeah, I want to live.’ Life is so precious, and you don’t realize how precious it is until you get [near the end] — and I’m not talking about the back nine, I’m talking about when you can see the f**king clubhouse.”
