James William Ross was born on 3 January 1952, in Fort Bragg, California USA. He is a retired wrestling commentator, executive and talent relations consultant, wrestler, referee, author and the owner of a restaurant. Known for his nickname Good Ol’ JR, he is considered as one of the greatest commentators in the history of wrestling.
So just how rich is Jim Ross? Ross’s diverse career has earned him a net worth of over $4 million, as reported in early 2016.
Jim Ross Net Worth $4 Million
Ross attended Westville High School in Westville, Oklahoma where he excelled in football, basketball and baseball, earning a number of honors. He started his career by providing commentary for college radio. He then began working as a referee in the National Wrestling Alliance Tri State Territory from 1974 to 1977. In 1982 Bill Watts purchased the Territory to take his Mid-South Wrestling promotion to a national level and Ross became its lead play-by-play man and Vice President of Marketing. When Watts’ attempt failed, the Mid-South was sold to Jim Crockett Promotions and renamed to Universal Wrestling Federation. Ross remained to work as a commentator and main play-by-play man for the NWA. The company eventually turned into World Championship Wrestling in 1991 and Ross became the head of its broadcasting. His net worth started to rise.
Ross remained there until 1993 and then joined the World Wresting Federation. For some time he worked with Bobby Heenan, being the main voice of the WWF pay-per-view events. After his idea of Radio WWF was taken, Ross became its host together with the WWF President Gorilla Monsoon. When his contract with the WWF came to end in 1994, Ross became an announcer for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The same year the WWF rehired him but they eventually fired him for allegedly giving inside information to the media, and Ross returned to Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The WWF hired him again to work as a host, commentator and announcer on various WWF shows, including “Superstars”, “Action Zone”, “Shotgun Saturday Night” and “SmackDown!”. He went on with these roles in “Raw is War” from 2002 to 2008, which significantly added to his wealth. Meanwhile, he also worked as an Executive Vice President of Talent Relations for the WWE. In 2007, Ross was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
The following year he traded positions with Michael Cole and became part of the SmackDown brand, where he remained one year. He was rehired to work on Raw in 2011 but was soon fired for walking out of a match. In 2012 Ross was hired as a WWE adviser and scout. He then briefly returned to Raw and in 2013 he started to work at the WWE Performance Center in Florida, coaching new announcers. He then hosted a WWE 2K14 roster announcement before he officially retired from WWE in 2013.
In 2014 Ross called boxing for Golden Boy Promotions on Fox Sports 1, and also commentated the Battlegrounds MMA one night tournament PPV.
The same year he started to host his own podcast called “The Ross Report”, a weekly discussion analyzing wrestling stars and storylines.
In 2015 Ross commented on New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome pay-per-view event. Early in 2016 it was announced that Ross had signed a contract with AXS TV to become the main announcer for NJPW program.
Currently, Ross works for Fox Sports’ website Foxsports.com, providing the commentary on wrestling. Aside from his career as a commentator, from time to time Ross appeared as a wrestler in a number of matches. His most remarkable matches were those against Jonathan Coachman, and his memorable matches against Michael Cole.
He has appeared in the 1999 comedy drama film “Man of the Year”, playing the role of a wrestling show’s announcer. He has also provided the voice for a number of WWE video games, and in some he is actually a playable character. All have contributed to his net worth.
Ross is also the author of two cook books, the 2000 “Can You Take the Heat? The WWF Is Cooking”, and the 2004 “J.R.’s Cookbook”. From 2007 to 2010 he owned a restaurant J.R.’s Family Bar-B-Q.
Talking about his personal life, Jim Ross has been married to Jan Grillette since 1993. He has two daughters from a previous marriage and two granddaughters. He has managed to deal with Bell’s Palsy since the early ’90s, which can temporarily freeze his facial muscles.
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