Reported by Ben Bauer of WrestleView.com
On Friday, October 14, 2005 at 12:54 PM EST

Dave Scherer of PWInsider.com is reporting that the timing of Jim Ross's colon surgery and his removal from the RAW announce team is pure coincidence. That is, WWE did not remove him in order to give him time off; they removed him to add new, fresh faces to the team, Ross's surgery played no part in the decision. As we know, they wanted Mike Goldberg, who eventually turned them down.

As far as how Ross was publically removed from the announce team, the opinion backstage seems to be overwhelmingly against how the McMahon's had the angle play out. The heel heat gained by the McMahons, not including Shane, will be almost meaningless, since they're not regulars on TV these days. Combine that with the lack of acknowledgement for all the time JR put into the company, and it comes off as blatantly disrespectful, considering Ross could very well never announce on RAW again.

Add to that the comments Coach made on Byte This! on Wednesday, where Coach basically trashed JR and buried him. While Coach is a heel, there wasn't much to be gained by having one announcer trash another on a show seen and heard by a small minority of WWE fans. Coach shouldn't be blamed for this, as the appearances are, for the most part, scripted, but rather this is just another dunce move by the writers.

There is currently no one planned to replace Ross on the RAW announce team. WWE does have some talent who have nothing happening who could make good announcers for a short run in CM Punk, who did color commentary for ROH for the better part of two years. I wouldn't even begin to think that would happen, but its just an idea. If they don't hire anyone from outside the company, Josh Matthews is the best play by play guy they have within the company. Another option is former ECW announcer Joey Styles who also signed a WWE deal as part of the ECW One Night Stand event and for future ECW programming on WWE 24/7.