I can hear Jim Ross's voice now: "By gawd, Lane Johnson just sent *insert any wrestler name here* back to training camp!"
After all, if the Eagles star offensive lineman had the build to be a professional wrestler back at Oklahoma — where preeminent wrestling announcer Jim Ross said he "just kept growing" — he sure has the build for it now... once football is out of the way, of course.
Johnson joined Trey Wingo on his "Half-Forgotten History" podcast and discussed the possibility of a post-NFL wrestling career, inspired in part by the words of the legendary Ross.
"Jim Ross, J.R., was an announcer for the WWE. He was always at our games and he would just whisper in my ear every now and then, 'hey, if football don't work out, I got you a spot,' " Johnson explained. "So I feel like in my heart I want to be a wrestler, but we'll see what happens when this football's done. But, yeah, I would love to. It's something you never have to grow up in, just seems like a lot of fun."
I'll say. Even with incredibly large humans like the Big Show (7-foot, 400-plus pounds), the Great Khali (7-foot-1, 347 pounds) and Andre the Giant (7-foot-4, 520 pounds) helping to make professional wrestling as popular as it is today, the 6-foot-6, 317-pound Johnson would still make for an imposing threat.
For the Eagles and the ravenous fan base, however, the hope is that Johnson's post-NFL days don't occur for quite some time. He's entering his age-31 season and is locked up with Philly until the end of the 2025 season, so we ideally won't be able to see Johnson consider the wrestling ring until at least that point. But we also want to make sure that Ross, currently 69 years old, isn't retired from his role with the AEW so that we can see JR go bonkers over the former Sooner, should that dream come to fruition.
With respect to every other announcer in the biz, there's only one who can bring out as much excitement — even when his voice is pasted over other sports highlights — as good ol' Jim Ross.
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