During a recent episode of his "Grilling JR" podcast, Jim Ross discussed what he has learned from Vince McMahon about commentary during his time with WWE.
"I know he wanted to stay involved and keep his TV presence established. I had a variety of partners in WCW, and all of them were good, quite frankly. I think he liked that rub. He sat in a good chair, and that chair facilitated a lot of guys to get exposure and so forth. Our first outing was not good because he talked too much. That sounds really, really shitty for me to say that because I talk all the time, but Iām the play-by-play guy. Iāve gotta set the table and stay between the lines. I have a big issue with commentary to this day ā one is talking through false finishes. How do we know the false finish is not the finish unless we know the finish? So, all of a sudden we talk through a false finish because we know thatās not the finish. It takes the edge off.
The other thing is the use of pronouns. I know we make fun of Vince with that, but one of the things Vince taught me on commentary was not to overuse pronouns ā āHe hit him. He did it again!ā Who the fuck is he? If the TV is on down my hall and Iām in my kitchen and I hear āHe did itā, Iām wondering who the hell theyāre talking about. It doesnāt stickā¦..a lot of announcers do that today, and I catch myself doing that. I hate it. The best way to get talent over, and thatās the only job a broadcaster has is to get talent over ā you do it with their names and nicknamesā¦ā¦I tried to explain that to Dusty, and he got it quite frankly. Our second broadcast was better than the first broadcast, but still with too many pronouns in my opinion. He did fine. Dusty had great charisma."