From WWE.com

"WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross announced that he is retiring from WWE today, after 20 years of service, to focus on his personal business endeavors."

Thank God. On the index, I only saw "BREAKING: Jim Ross..." and I thought the last word was going to be dies...

Hell of an announcer, great career, and his decision. Nothing wrong with that.

^That

So many of my favourite wrestling memories have JR's voice in them. Well done him on a fantastic career.

All hail JR.

BAH GAWD KING! JR'S RETAHRIN! IT'S THE END OVEN ERAH!

Damn, one of the best, if not the best announcer in the wrestling industry overall. One of WWE's mainstays and I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Aside from Jim Ross wanting to focus on "other business ventures" (most notably his JR's Barbecue company), the Wrestling Observer reports that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon had a role in his departure.

According to Observer report, Ross and McMahon met yesterday (Wednesday) to discuss Ross's future with the company, which led to the decision for Ross to retire.

It's being said that Ric Flair's unruly behavior at the WWE 2K14 panel during SummerSlam weekend was a contributing factor in his departure. WWE management felt that Ross, who hosted the event, should have cut off Ric Flair when he went off-script and made several controversial remarks in front of WWE & 2K Sports executives.

I thought that too Caleb.

Gonna miss JR. Wish him the best.

You can catch him on the sidelines at Sooner's games.

Gonna miss JR.

I like how JR's retirement isn't all super played-up or whatever. Hogging the spotlight isn't what being a good announcer is all about. Hope they show at least like a short video package or something on RAW.

Caleb wrote:

Thank God. On the index, I only saw "BREAKING: Jim Ross..." and I thought the last word was going to be dies...

Hell of an announcer, great career, and his decision. Nothing wrong with that.

Same. That happens way too many times xD

But yeah, JR was the best commentator for the WWE hands down. The Attitude Era wouldn't have been the same without him making every epic moment even more epic.

rocketdentures wrote:

I like how JR's retirement isn't all super played-up or whatever. Hogging the spotlight isn't what being a good announcer is all about. Hope they show at least like a short video package or something on RAW.

No. He was fired. This is a cover up.

Welp, that's depressing.

UPDATE x 8: WWE’s Jane Geddes sent out a memo (text message & email) to all WWE talent yesterday. The memo pushed the public story that Ross had retired from the company as opposed to having really been released from his contract.

UPDATE x 7: There were some very unhappy people in WWE after the news on Jim Ross’ “retirement” (aka firing) broke. Some went on record as saying the stuff on TV has turned to reality. The basic gist of things is that if you represent the company in a bad way, you get fired for it because representing WWE negatively is “bad for business.” Many also feel that the blame should be placed solely on Ric Flair and not Jim Ross … but WWE’s mindset is that JR didn’t do enough to switch topics and move on when things started going off script. What was Jim supposed to do when Ric got emotional and was talking about the death of his son Reed – cut him off?! The company also feels Ross “wasn’t his normal self” during the panel and that is certainty debatable although Ross denies the claims that he was drunk.

…….. and for those who have asked or questioned JR’s departure, no, it’s not a “work” by any means. There are no plans to have him return and get involved in the current storyline. Several top WWE officials (Vince, HHH, Steph, etc.) were legitimately pissed off and have been since SummerSlam. It just took until now for them to do something about it. For what it’s worth, Ric Flair has been fired as well but he was never under contract in the first place. A Flair cameo planned for SummerSlam was scrapped and the ambassador role they wanted him to be in is off the radar as of now.

You can expect Jim Ross to remain classy as he always does in tweets, blogs, etc. There are numerous people who are quietly rolling their eyes at the entire situation though.