The Bell's of Saint JR (Relating to Jim Ross)

INTRO: Gregorian chant music as Ariel enters a church confession booth.

PRIEST and ARIEL: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

ARIEL: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been five months since my last confession and my last podcast.

PRIEST: You may begin, my Son. You can briefly describe your podcast.

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Wrestling With Heels On Podcast Explained

A longtime fan of radio performer Joe Frank, I wanted my podcast format to be as varied as his was. Joe Frank’s radio shows were a weekly potluck offering of absurd monologues and unique radio skits. Fans like me never knew what they were going to wind up hearing. That was the listening experience I sought to emulate.

So while the podcast tends to be more about the telling of nostalgic stories from my boyhood with wrestling fandom, it is also somewhat confessional in nature. Quite a few episodes contain revelations about my personal life I’ve only disclosed to the closest of friends.

There were also two guest interview episodes I had a lot of fun doing, but contained sound glitches (my errors) that almost made the whole thing unlistenable. I published them anyway because the segments that weren’t affected by the glitches were worth hearing as a whole.

I was also lucky to have understanding guests who were kind enough to overlook the patchy sound quality. That helped a lot. I expect to add more guest interviews to the podcast in the future, as guest interviews are fun and help keep the podcast more centered on sports.

Since there is such a thing as too much freedom, my tendency to veer off into experimentation demands restraint. A big idea for an episode parodying a popular television or radio show can stifle me from actually writing it. Two weeks later there’s no new episode to publish. That’s the reason I now sign off with “See you in two weeks…maybe.” It lessens expectations (assuming there any), and makes me less of a liar. Two weeks was always kind of an arbitrary, self-imposed deadline but it’s no reason not to deliver the show on time.

Personal Connections

Sometimes I can’t find personal connections to any wrestlers or wrestling events or wrestling themes and that keeps me from posting shows too. This is also not a good excuse, Father. I don’t believe in writer’s block.

PRIEST: Please, get to the sin, my Son. There are other penitents waiting.

Yes, of course. On July 3, 2024, my wife drove me to the hospital. We thought I was having a stroke because I couldn’t move the right side of my face.

It turned out I had Bell’s palsy, not a stroke. Bell’s palsy and stroke share the same lopsided face symptom that was my initial cause for alarm. Because the right side of my face was paralyzed, I had difficulty speaking, slurring my words and drooling. I couldn’t blink my right eye (which led to dryness and tearing), lift my right eyebrow, or smile. There was also this unbearable pain radiating up and down my jaw and at the back of my right ear.

The attending hospital doctor told me it could take up to six months for my facial paralysis to go away. There was a chance the paralysis could stay permanent. A small percentage of people never recover from the paralysis. The sour faced expression caused by the palsy made me look bad-tempered and unfriendly, both of which I am generally not. It pained me to know that I might never have the somewhat sunny disposition I’d had before the onset of the Bell’s.

This dire possibility spurred me to think about pro wrestling commentator Jim Ross, AKA “Good Ol’ JR”, as he is known by WWE fans the world over. He is considered the greatest wrestling commentator of all time. Ross has had three bouts of Bell’s palsy.

The first attack happened on January 30, 1994. Shockingly, because of his inability to perform his duties as a commentator, the WWE fired Ross two weeks later. A second attack occurred in 1998, while in England, shortly after receiving news of his mother’s passing.

Soon after that second attack, a WCW wrestler named Ed Ferrara had the audacity to mimic Ross’ impaired speech during rival WCW telecasts. It was received as being in poor taste by wrestling fans, wrestlers, and WCW owner Ted Turner alike, and was quickly dropped from Ferrara’s act. On October 20, 2009, Jim Ross suffered his third attack of Bell’s palsy. According to Ross, it was his most debilitating attack yet.

Having Bell’s palsy in common with Jim Ross inspired me to write a podcast episode about my connection to Jim Ross now that I had suffered Bell’s palsy as well. This leads me to my sin, Father: the sin of exploitation.

PRIEST: I am not sure I follow, my Son.

In other words, I believe exploitation is surely a sin, certainly immoral. Wouldn’t you agree?

PRIEST: Yes. The Bible teaches us to love everyone as you love yourself.

Right. So I don’t think I ever really cared much for Jim Ross or his medical condition, Bell’s palsy, until I was afflicted with it. He didn’t mean anything to me until now. And even now, I only think he means something to me because he’s fodder for another podcast episode, one that’s been a long time coming, overdue, if you will.

So what I’m doing is using his medical condition to create a platform for a podcast. Isn’t that self-serving, Father? Isn’t that exploitative?

PRIEST: Well, I think you’re looking at your podcast subject matter, with a much too critical eye. My question to you, as you seem to have some background on Mr. Ross, is do you think Mr. Ross has ever exploited his Bell’s palsy for his own use?

That’s a good question. Yes. There was a storyline that was used not long after Ross’ second attack. I read it in Wikipedia. According to the Wikipedia entry on Ross: “ On March 8, 1999, Jim Ross returned to Raw Is War as part of a storyline alleging that McMahon fired him because of his Bell’s palsy, but that he would not go down quietly and enlisted the services of “Dr. Death” Steve Williams as his personal “enforcer”. “

PRIEST: There you go. Now you could take the slant on that storyline that Jim Ross was bringing attention to the public the injustice of being fired for a medical condition.

That’s right. Now that we’re talking about this, I remember what Jim Ross said about losing his smile. It brings to a tear to my eye when I think about it. He said:

“The stress from my life at the time affected the Bell’s palsy and created it. So in a way, it did and I’ve never smiled again. My two granddaughters are in the 10th grade and freshmen in college, and they’ve never seen grandad smile. So I lost my smile. It was the hand I was dealt.”

I’m moved by that quote because I too have lost my smile. I too can no longer express facially what I used to do instinctively. It’s the old adage Father…I don’t know who said it…

PRIEST: “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” BIG YELLOW TAXI. Joni Mitchell.

Yes. Yes. I like the Counting Crows version. But, I digress. The point is smiling is important. Did you know, children smile 400 times a day? Adults smile 20 times a day. Especially happy adults smile, 40 to 50 times a day. Now I can’t smile once a day.

And to think my mother-in-law you used to ask me to smile more often all the time, and I used to get annoyed at her for doing so. PRIEST: My second question to you is why do you want to tell anybody about your Bell’s palsy?

I don’t know, Father. I want to say it’s part of the confessional aspect of the podcast. As I told you earlier, there are things I’ve confessed to on the show that only my closest friends know about. And some of them are only going to know about my bout with Bell’s palsy when this episode is posted. But, I think that I want to maybe just put it out there. It happened. It happens. It can happen to anyone. I’m honestly baffled as to why it happened to me.

In medical parlance, Bell’s palsy is known as an idiopathic disease because its onset is often sudden and unexplainable. According to information on the Mayo Clinic website, viral infections like herpes, rubella, mumps and Epstein-Barr are often linked to Bell’s palsy.

People like me — obese, diabetic, and with high blood pressure – are more prone than others to the condition. Stress, cold air, and lack of sleep have also been found, with varying results, to cause Bell’s palsy symptoms.

Check marks next to each box for me, as a few days before the onset of my condition I had been a) particularly stressed about an upcoming family vacation, b) sleeping too close to the whirring cold air of a brand new fan, and c) sleeping three to four hours a day after my overnight shifts—a surefire way to suppress my immune system.

On the bright side, there are just as many ways to treat Bell’s palsy as there are causes. Taking oral steroids and antiviral medicines in the first few days of the onset is the first course of action. Prednisone and Valtrex were prescribed to me in the hospital right away. Physical therapy and acupuncture help restore facial muscle strength through exercise. I’ve yet to make an appointment to see a therapist.

Continual use of artificial tears to wet and re-wet the eye that doesn’t close prevents corneal abrasion. The dryness in my right eye is especially excruciating on very sunny days. On those sunny days, I wear an eyepatch over my right eye to keep the glare out.

PRIEST: I can tell you right now, Son that I’ve learned more about Bell’s palsy in the few minutes you’ve been in my confessional than in my whole lifetime.

Really, Father?

PRIEST: Yes, really. And that’s because you’ve made a connection to Mr. Ross, and that connection is a conveyance of meaning, hopefully, to anyone who doesn’t know or wants to know more about Bell’s palsy. You are framing it in a proper context to your show, and as far as I know, there is no sin in that.

My wife is Jewish. She would call it a mitzvah.

PRIEST: It is indeed a mitzvah. My third question is how are you feeling now, as far as your Bell’s palsy?

Better, Father. The steroids have helped and I’m getting more sleep, which is always a good thing. I still can’t smile but I’m speaking more clearly and my face doesn’t feel as lopsided as it was. Things are starting to even out. The worst part is my eye. It gets dry a lot so I’m constantly rewetting it with eye drops and gels at night. Overall, I consider myself a very lucky man that it wasn’t a stroke.

PRIEST: I would say you’re blessed. And what of Mr. Ross? How is he faring these days?

Well Ross has battled other ailments as well as Bell’s palsy. A bout with Colon cancer and skin cancer. He emerged victorious with both, but he lives with Bell’s palsy to this day and it’s a battle scar. He’s been openly expressed that stress of all forms can contribute to the onset of Bell’s palsy. It can happen again.

And I guess that’s something I have to be aware of as well. Bell’s palsy can take on a mental aspect for the victim as well. One of the things I’ve noticed is an increased desire not to talk. I just don’t like the way I sound.

For Jim Ross it had to be quadruple times mentally anguishing to get behind the mic after the first bout of Bell’s palsy. It can certainly shake your confidence. But the man overcame whatever mental restraints might have held him back from public speaking and today he is one of the living greats.

Here’s a quote from Ryan Dilbert from the BLEACHER REPORT:

“To hear a match with Ross on the call was to watch wrestling morph into poetry, for the scripted action to feel real, meaningful and unforgettable. Debating the greatest pro wrestling commentator comes down to two men, Ross and Gordon Solie. As for the greatest in WWE history, there is no debate Ross stands alone”.

PRIEST: Your penance is as follows, Son. Say one Our Father and post your podcast ASAP. I will be listening.

Thank you, Father.

You’ve been listening to WRESTLING with HEELS ON.

Join me in two weeks … (CRACKLING THUNDER) …maybe… for another stroll down villainy lane.

Thank you Jim Ross, for your talents and inspiration.

Thank you, Wendy, for taking me to the hospital right away.

THE END

Hi everyone. My name is Ariel Gonzalez, originally from Brooklyn, now living in the Garden State and I have a new podcast called “Wrestling With Heels On.”

On the podcast, I get to reminisce about my favorite wrestling bad guys from yesteryear. Light on stats and heavy on nostalgia, this little trip down villainy lane gives me a chance to visit the dark corridors of my wrestling soul, and it’s also fun to have a podcast.