Fans of Ring of Honor have little doubt heard Ian Riccaboni check with ring announcer Bobby Cruise as “the voice of Ring of Honor,” and with good reason, as Cruise has occupied that role for over twenty years. But how did Cruise get the role to start with? He revealed his ROH origin story on a recent episode of “What Happened When?” explaining that he had been doing a little work for ROH already when then owner Cary Silkin decided he wanted Cruise to are available in full-time.
“He called me someday, and I’ll always remember, he said ‘Hey, if the ring announcing position becomes available, would you are taking it?'” Cruise said. “We would like you to announce all of our shows.’ They used to make use of someone on the East Coast, someone within the Midwest, someone wherever. He’s like ‘We would like you to do all the things. So if it becomes available, will you are taking it?’ And I said ‘If it becomes available, I’ll take it.’ And he said ‘Okay. Give me an hour.’ Inside a half hour, he called me and said ‘Okay, it’s available.'”
Cruise admitted his hiring was controversial, as he effectively replaced the opposite ring announcer, who Cruise described as a former ECW name. The hostility between them later spilled over online.
“I had posted something online since the ROH message board was a giant thing back then,” Cruise said. “And I had said ‘Hey, I appreciate the chance and I’m looking forward to doing this, and I plan on reaching out to the previous ring announcer, simply to sort of say ‘Hey, I assume that is the wrestling business’ or whatever.’ But then I got word secondhand, like this highschool stuff, that he buried me with something. He thought it was fake, he thought Ring of Honor wrote it for me and all this other stuff. And I said ‘You already know what? I’m not even going to hassle.’ In order that’s sort of the way in which it went.”
Should you quote this text, please credit “What Happened When” and supply an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription