WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross has spoken frequently about his complicated relationship with former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. The billionaire seemed to take great delight in bullying his top commentator, going so far as to frequently humiliate him on WWE programming.
During a recent edition of his podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy shared his take on the dynamic between Ross and McMahon, describing his old boss's behaviour as "abusive."
"I felt like Vince had a thing for, like, putting people in positions, which made them feel uncomfortable. And he kind of got off on that," the TNA star explained. "In all honesty, that was like one of his things. I felt like he did that with JR quite a bit, you know, that became a regular, common thing there."
"There were certain people I felt like, if you ever showed signs of weakness, or like, 'No, I don’t want to do that,' or like being uncomfortable, like, if you were outright uncomfortable with it, then he would push it even harder," Hardy added.
"I think he was abusive with it as well. And JR probably was one of the guys he was more abusive with, in many ways. There was, there was, like, this real weird rivalry between them in some ways," he continued. "JR, at the end of the day, is the one who absolutely made the call and pushed and decided to hire myself and Jeff, he also is the one who hired Edge and Christian, so that whole Edge, Christian, Hardy’s legacy, which is huge, that was all a JR call."
McMahon ultimately pushed Ross out of WWE, but spent years prompting Michael Cole to take unwarranted shots at "Good 'Ol JR" on commentary. Now, JR is part of AEW and appears content to remain there, despite WWE not being run by Triple H.
Hardy was responding to Ross' recent comments about McMahon, in which he said, "I have never understood Vince’s intense animosity. I think he was jealous. He was never gonna be...he was never the play-by-play guy that I was, but he didn’t want to give me any credit for helping build the Attitude Era into what it was."
"I’m not the only person responsible for that, for God’s sakes. I’m not trying to say that," the legendary commenter noted. "All I'm trying to say is I signed all those guys that made him millions of dollars and facilitated the company going public" (including The Hardy Boyz, along with Edge and Christian, which Matt mentioned above).
You can hear moe from Hardy in the player below.