From legendary wrestling announcer Jim Ross, this candid, colorful memoir about the inner workings of the WWE and the personal crises he weathered at the height of his career is “a must-read for wrestling fans” (Charleston Post Courier).
If you’ve caught a televised wrestling match anytime in the past thirty years, you’ve probably heard Jim Ross’s throaty Oklahoma twang. The beloved longtime announcer of the WWE “has been a driving force behind a generation of wrestling fans” (Mark Cuban), and he’s not slowing down, having signed on as the announcer of the starry new wrestling venture All Elite Wrestling. In this follow-up to his bestselling memoir Slobberknocker, he dishes out about not only his long career, which includes nurturing global stars like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and John Cena, but also about his challenges of aging and disability, his split from collaborator Vince McMahon, and the sudden death of his beloved wife, Jan. The result is a gruff, endearing, and remarkably human-scale portrait, set against the larger than life backdrop of professional wrestling.
Ross’s ascent in WWE mirrors the rise of professional wrestling itself from a DIY sideshow to a billion-dollar business. Under the Black Hat traces all the highs and lows of that wild ride, in which Jim served not only as on-air commentator, but talent manager, payroll master, and even occasional in-ring foil to threats like Paul “Triple H” Levesque and Undertaker. While his role brought him riches and exposure he had never dreamed of, he chafed against the strictures of a fickle corporate culture and what he saw as a narrow vision of what makes great wrestlers—and great story lines. When suddenly stricken with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis that makes it impossible to smile, he started down his greatest fear—being cast out of the announcing booth for good.
Picking up where Slobberknocker left off and ending on the cusp of a new career in a reimagined industry, Under the Black Hat is the triumphant tale of a country boy who made it to the top, took a few knocks, and stuck around—just where his fans like him. Not only being one of the greatest wrestlers of the WWE, Ross is also “a master storyteller, and this book is the perfect forum for his forty years’ worth of tales” (Chris Jericho, former WWE champion).
- 320 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Print ISBN
9781982130541
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Prologue: āWrestleMania XVā: Weāll Do This Tog
- Part One: Back in the Saddle
- Part Two: Owen
- Part Three: Cash and Creative
- Part Four: The New and the Old
- Part Five: Talent and Television
- Part Six: The Wrestling Guy
- Part Seven: Friction and Friendship
- Part Eight: The Changing of Steve
- Part Nine: Winning and Losing
- Part Ten: Different Stars, Different Paths
- Part Eleven: Trouble in the Sky
- Part Twelve: Burned, Hired, Firedā¦ and Hired
- Part Thirteen: The Corporate Ax
- Part Fourteen: The Outhouse
- Part Fifteen: Smooth Sailingā¦ For Now
- Part Sixteen: Smooth Sailing Is Very Much Over
- Part Seventeen: Down the Hole, Seeing Light
- Part Eighteen: A New Outlook
- Part Nineteen: Please Make It Stop
- Part Twenty: Another Turn in the Road
- Part Twenty-One: Reset, Retire, or Reinvent
- Part Twenty-Two: Life Outside the Walls
- Part Twenty-Three: Goodbye
- Epilogue: Looking Ahead
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright