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| New Japan and Global Force are bringing in the Man under the Black Resistol Hat Photo Credit: WWE.com |
GFW dropped its promised announcement today, and boy, was it a doozy. Jim Ross, arguably the voice of the Attitude Era, has been signed to do play-by-play for the Global Force presentation of New Japan Pro Wrestling's WrestleKingdom 9. The acquisition of Ross' services arguably is the biggest possible coup the fledgling company/governing body (?) could have secured for itself. Ross has been on the sidelines as a regular announcer for several years, and even he himself doubted he would ever get behind the microphone again to call wrestling. So far, it's not known whether Ross will be calling the event stag or if he'll have a color commentator.
My personal feelings on Ross aside (they're not positive), this is a tremendous pickup, and it will from the start ensure a buzz for the show that no current wrestler outside of CM Punk could generate. Ross' presence adds gravitas to any wrestling event to a lot of people, and he may be the difference between a slow start for GFW and NJPW in America and landing a substantial foothold right away.
Additionally, GFW will be offering both a live broadcast of the show at 2 AM Eastern as well as the already-announced 7 PM replay. Nite owls will get the chance to see the show as it happens, while the more traditional audience will get to view it at the regular time. Everything seems to be coming together nicely for the venture to hit the ground running, which is more than anyone could say about the beginning of founder Jeff Jarrett's last venture.
