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 โa must-read for wrestling fansโ (Charleston Post Courier).
If youโve caught a televised wrestling match anytime in the past thirty years, youโve probably heard Jim Rossโs throaty Oklahoma twang. The beloved longtime announcer of the WWE โhas been a driving force behind a generation of wrestling fansโ (Mark Cuban), and heโs 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.
Rossโs 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 โTriple Hโ 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 wrestlersโand great story lines. When suddenly stricken with Bellโs palsy, a form of facial paralysis that makes it impossible to smile, he started down his greatest fearโbeing 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 aroundโjust where his fans like him. Not only being one of the greatest wrestlers of the WWE, Ross is also โa master storyteller, and this book is the perfect forum for his forty yearsโ worth of talesโ (Chris Jericho, former WWE champion).