Jim Ross Reveals WWE Legend He Gave Infamous Gimmick To, Ranks All-Time Great Heels

On a recent episode of his weekly podcast, The Ross Report, WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross addressed the recent controversy surrounding Roseanne Barr, as he has had issues with Ambien addiction in his life. He also touches on the top heels of all-time and reveals a gimmick he gave a well-known WWE legend.

Check out highlights of comments “Good Ole’ J.R.” made on his podcast below.

On the Roseanne Barr controversy: “She got cancelled by ABC, as many of you know. Her show was getting great ratings. It premiered with 18 million viewers. It looked like [ABC] found a goldmine. I heard the estimate of how much money it was going to lose in the cancellation for advertising was around $35 and $50 million dollars that ABC cut loose from and it also cost a lot of talented people their jobs. That’s what’s really irking to me. But she made a late night racist Twitter post that will not be repeated here. I liked the show, as a matter of fact. It kind of reminded me of the old days. And Roseanne’s like a dozen women that I’ve met in my lifetime, very outspoken, very strong. But you can’t let this pass. It cost a lot of people their jobs, as I mentioned. It’s just total lack of judgment. Maybe we should have sensed that when she married Tom Arnold, for God’s sake. How smart was that? In any event, nobody’s bulletproof, ladies and gentlemen, not even Roseanne.”

On Roseanne claiming Ambien made her tweet the comments she made: “I can tell you this: I was a 10-year Ambien user. I was a 10-year, decade-long Ambien abuser, and since my wife saw me through these troubling waters, it was no more Ambien and no more Xanax, so therefore I’m not mixing it with alcohol. But Ambien can make you do some funny, funny things. If you look up Ambien in the medical dictionary, it is a temporary medicine for insomnia. ‘Temporary’ is the key word here, not 10 years, J.R. ‘Oh, it can’t hurt me. I’m tough. It can’t hurt me.’ Well, it made Roseanne do some funny things. It could make you too, so be leery of that. There are meds out there that are not opioids, that are not habit-forming, that’ll help you sleep. Trust me. This I know.”

On giving King Kong Bundy his infamous five-count pin gimmick: “I gave Bundy that five-count deal, his gimmick. [Bill] Watts was going to bring him in and wants to do something different. I said, ‘why don’t you have him where he’s so powerful, he’s so strong, he’s so confident, he’s so huge, that he’ll beat people with a five-count, not a three-count? He’s really going to put them away.’ So the five, he’d do the five. Watts liked that idea and I think it worked. I think King Kong Bundy still uses that to this day when you see him in the ring from time-to-time.”

On who he considers the all-time greatest heels in wrestling: “I think the best villain of ‘The Attitude Era’ was Vince McMahon. Mr. McMahon was an ass-kicker. He was absolutely amazing. Ric Flair. How do you leave Ric Flair off of any list of any villains? My God! Triple H, hell of a villain. JBL did a hell of a job. John ‘Bradshaw’ Layfield made it easy for the fans to dislike him. He could conjure up that personality, that big, loudmouth, Dick Murdoch-like Texan, and draw money. Johnny did a good job with that for us. Eric Bischoff, a hell of a heel. No doubt about that. I think Chris Jericho doing great as a heel, and I worked firsthand with some great heels myself. Jerry Lawler, Paul Heyman, Terry Funk, Bobby ‘The Brain’ [Heenan]. So those are some of the guys that I look at that have to be on that list.”

Check out the complete episode of The Ross Report podcast at Player.fm. H/T to WrestlingInc.com for transcribing the above J.R. quotes.

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