WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross was made the Head of Talent Relations of WWE back in 1997, which was a very big deal. He served in that position until 2005, when he was asked to step down in favor of John Laurinaitis. In fact, Laurinaitis kept pushing Vince McMahon for the role.
While speaking on the latest episode of Grillin’ JR, Jim Ross talked about John Laurinaitis eventually becoming the Head Of Talent Relations in the company in the past.
Jim Ross how Johnny Ace pushed Vince McMahon for the role, explaining how Vince McMahon eventually sided with Laurinaitis over Ross. Ross then admitted that he had a lesser workload and still got paid for it.
“I know he kept pushing Vince, and he was younger and he looked good in his suit. He had pretty teeth and look at me, I can’t even smile. Vince sided with John and decided it was time. He was very nice and he couldn’t thank me enough for my contributions. I think he made me the EVP of business strategies. I had some title I don’t know it’s meaningless didn’t matter. My money didn’t change, my hours didn’t change. I worked less hours, actually. The payroll still had to be paid. The funny story about that is that I was still doing payroll.
I got in a conversation about something and I said ‘Well, I gotta finish payroll.’ He said ‘What do you mean you got to finish payroll? That’s not your job anymore.’ I said ‘I understand that Mr. McMahon, but your new guy doesn’t understand that.’ It was an arduous this, you know, mind-numbing responsibility every week. There’s no off time. You can’t not pay a guy. You cannot fail or screw their money or make their checks late whatever it may be. So, it was a messy deal. Shouldn’t have happened.”
Jim Ross
Johnny Ace was placed on indefinite administrative leave, and his future was all but certain after that. Eventually, John Laurinaitis was fired by WWE earlier last year and it is not known whether he will ever return to pro wrestling again in the future.
H/T to Ringside News
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