WORD ON THE STREET (INTERNET): JIM ROSS HANGING UP HEADSET FOR GOOD

This comes from TH at The Wrestling Blog (who got it from WithLeather), with the rumour being that JR, if he returns to the WWE at all, he will be involved in talent development.

Firstly, and most obviously, Jim Ross is the greatest pro wrestling play-by-play announcer of all-time, and I'll definitely miss hearing him blowing my speakers up calling a match.

But, I would kill for JR backstage developing talent. This is no official list (since I can't find one anywhere) and it's going from complete memory of interviews and blog posts and whatnot I've heard over the years, but take a look at JR's track record for signing wrestlers when he was VP of Talent Relations in the WWE:

WRESTLERS SIGNED BY JIM ROSS

- Stone Cold Steve Austin

- Mick Foley

- The Rock

- Edge

- Christian

- Hardy Boys

- Randy Orton

- John Cena

- Batista

I could be wrong on some of these (it'd be awesome if someone could track down an official list), and I could be missing some, but the gist is (as far as I know) JR has essentially signed any legit main event star since the nineties.

Now, Orton, Batista and Cena have all been on top for about five years, and there's no real immediate sign of someone new stepping up. To put that in perspective, Stone Cold won the WWF Title in 1998, had his final match in 2003, and by then John Cena was well on his way to the top. But even with that small gap between Austin and Cena, there was still a bunch of time with Triple H, Benoit, HBK returning, etc. all keeping shit together.

As of now, no one appears to be ready to take the "torch" from Cena/Batista/Orton - the last big group of new stars JR signed. And I don't think it's super necessary or anything, but these guys have been around for a while, and you should be able to pinpoint the next guy by now.

With JR potentially stepping in to help develop talent, perhaps he could help whoever is on the cusp of the main event get his shit together, because it seems like JR is the only person able to see who the next big star is.

Except for ROH. They make stars all day long.

And maybe that's where the WWE will need to take their cue if JR doesn't step in, or even after he's retired (same for Johnny Ace).

Either way, he's the greatest of all time, so here's his Hall of Fame announcement video from 2007 that ends with a super touching (I'm not crying I swear!) ovation from the crowd:

WWE HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCEMENT

2007 INDUCTEE JIM ROSS