Jim Ross Explains Why “Miserable Prick” Don Callis Failed In WWE
Jim Ross has looked back at Don Callis‘ time in WWE back in the 1990s.
Callis made his WWE debut as a wrestler known as ‘The Jackyl’ and went on to join and then lead The Truth Commission. The group didn’t see much success, although Callis was able to showcase his skills as a talker.
After disbanding The Truth Commission, Callis formed a short-lived, oddball group of wrestlers called The Oddities before going on to manage The Acolytes – Farooq and Bradshaw – and ultimately being released in 1998.
On the latest edition of Grilling JR, Ross explained that Callis’ failed run in the company was simply down to “bad timing.”
“Bad timing Conrad more than anything. If it had worked, it would not have been bad creative. But you look at who he was managing. I did some commentary with him on some shows and realised right away he’s a hell of a talker.
“Now, he may be a miserable prick in real life, and some people would agree with that assessment of Don. But nobody can disagree with the fact that Don is very intelligent and he thinks for Don. So, you know, old school, how do I get over brother type deal, so that he could talk man, from the get-go, one of the best talkers.
“I thought that would be his calling as a broadcaster, and not as a manager. Not that he couldn’t be a manager, not that he couldn’t do a good job. It’s just the fact that when you stumble across a guy that can really talk, is a good listener, and has the ability to talk in soundbites so he’s not on and on and on. You know, you’re lucky.
“We kind of blew it with him” – Jim Ross on Don Callis in WWE
JR believes Don Callis found his calling with a microphone in his hand, but WWE dropped the ball with the star by “not maximising his minutes.”
“So that’s how I looked at Don, I thought we’d found a real first-rate… Let him evolve, help him out. And he’s smart enough to understand what he’s doing right and what he’s doing wrong. Like I said, he was a good listener and he wanted to do well, so we didn’t do a good job, in my opinion, of maximising the minutes for Don Callis.
“It was a mistake on how he was handled there. And that might have been partially Don’s situation. Don had a lot of self-confidence, he had been around the business long enough to know all the good brothers and the bad brothers and all that stuff. So I don’t know that did him any favours, but nonetheless, talented dude and we kind of blew it with him in that era, I thought.”
These days, Callis is in his element in AEW as the diabolical leader of the Callis family, which currently only consists of him and Konosuke Takeshita.
Chris Jericho was also set to join his old friend on the latest episode of Dynamite, only to be betrayed and attacked by Will Ospreay, setting up a match between the pair at All In.
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