On Talking Smack this week, Daniel Bryan paid tribute to Jim Ross’ wife Jan Ross, who recently died.
At the very beginning of the SmackDown Live aftershow on March 28th, Bryan said that he wanted to send his sincere condolences to Jim Ross. He also specifically talked about Jan Ross, saying that she was “such a nice woman” and that people backstage have “nothing but good things to say about her.”
This was the only instance of the death of Jim Ross’ wife being mentioned on WWE programming this week. On last week’s SmackDown Live, John Layfield made a quick mention on commentary of the fact that Jan Ross was in the hospital, and so it was thought that Jan might receive some sort of official tribute on Raw or SmackDown this week. The Talking Smack mention was the closest thing to that.
Jan Ross died last week after being struck by a car while riding her Vespa to the gym. She was not wearing a helmet at the time and sustained serious head trauma. The incident occurred on Monday night, and Jan died on Wednesday.
In the days since, WWE employees have paid tribute to Jan Ross, in part due to their respect for Jim Ross but also just because she had a reputation in the company of being an incredibly nice person. In fact, Jim Ross has said that Jan was quite welcoming to everyone on the WWE roster.
“She loved the talents and their spouses, invited them into our home, cooked for them and even did some of their laundry that they would bring over,” Ross said on his website. “Some of the Attitude Era’s biggest stars were made to feel welcome in our home over the years thanks to my wife.”