WWE HOFer Jim Ross Reveals His Favorite Year As A Broadcaster In Wrestling And Why It Was

Iconic announcer Jim Ross was the voice of WWE throughout much of the Attitude Era, was on the call for Shawn Michaels' farewell match at WrestleMania 26, and even returned to commentary for the "Raw 25" special episode in 2018. However, by Ross' own admission, none of those assignments compare to the fun he had calling the action for WCW in 1989 when Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat had their trilogy of legendary matches.

On "Grilling Jr," Ross explained why the Flair-Steamboat bouts, and the subsequent Flair vs. Funk rivalry in the same year, brought out the best in him as an announcer. "That was my favorite year in all my years I've been in the wrestling business because of the quality of matches," Ross said of 1989. "Then after Ricky, you'd get Terry Funk, who's having a glory year — he hadn't missed a beat. We forget just how talented a worker he was, but boy, this was art. Everybody in wrestling today can learn from watching Flair versus Steamboat, and Flair versus Funk." 

Ross believes that regardless of where a wrestler is on the card, they should study "the concept" behind the matches from 1989 WCW-NWA and try to incorporate the lessons into their craft. A large part of his reasoning is that the likes of Flair, Steamboat, and Funk fused their unique styles into in-ring storytelling, which many believe is a lost art in modern wrestling. "It'll go down in history, at least to me, as the best wrestling year," Ross added. "I didn't have a better wrestling year. Maybe there was a year or so in the Attitude Era when [Steve] Austin got really hot ... but other than that, '89 was it."