James William Ross was born on January 3, 1952, in Fort Bragg, California. While attending Westville High School, Ross played first base on the Westville baseball team. Ross was a two-time all-conference football player for the Westville Yellowjackets in 1968-69. His maternal grandparents owned a general store in Westville, Oklahoma and his paternal grandfather, Dee Ross, owned an off-sale beer store and was a carpenter.

On June 23, 2008 during the 2008 WWE Draft, Ross was drafted from Raw to the SmackDown brand while Michael Cole was drafted from SmackDown to Raw, trading positions as commentators on each brand. This ended Ross' position as Monday Night Raw's play-by-play commentator after a nearly 12-year run. The following day Ross posted a blog on his official website saying initially he was not happy with the move and considered quitting the company since he was not told beforehand about the move, but that he would work "to make SmackDown the best program the WWE produces".  On September 23, 2008 episode of ECW on Syfy, Ross made an appearance on the ECW brand filling in for a sick Todd Grisham alongside Matt Striker.  On April 8, 2009, Ross announced on his WWE Universe blog that with the departure of Tazz from World Wrestling Entertainment, he would assume the role of SmackDown's color analyst, with ECW announcer Todd Grisham moving over to the brand as the play-by-play announcer. October 6, 2009 was his last broadcast as a full-time announcer for WWE.  Ross missed the SmackDown tapings on October 13, 2009, as he asked for a day off due to an anniversary. Seven days later, on October 20, Ross suffered his third Bell's palsy episode en route to Columbia, South Carolina for a SmackDown taping. After initially planning on working the tapings and reuniting with Lawler, Ross instead flew back to Oklahoma, missing the show--Lawler and Cole commentated SmackDown--and leaving his plans for Bragging Rights in the air. On October 21, 2009, Jim Ross announced that he would not be commentating the WWE Bragging Rights pay-per-view, but Grisham mentioned that SmackDown would give Ross the Bragging Rights trophy as a "get well" gift.

Did Ross have any other roles with SmackDown?
Jim Ross announced that he would not be commentating the WWE Bragging Rights pay-per-view,