Fans of Ring of Honor have no doubt heard Ian Riccaboni refer to 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 begin with? He revealed his ROH origin story on a recent episode of "What Happened When?" explaining that he had been doing some work for ROH already when then owner Cary Silkin decided he wanted Cruise to come in full-time."He called me one day, and I'll never forget, he said 'Hey, if the ring announcing position becomes available, would you take it?'" Cruise said. "We want you to announce all of our shows.' They used to use someone on the East Coast, someone in the Midwest, someone wherever. He's like 'We want you to do everything. So if it becomes available, will you take it?' And I said 'If it becomes available, I'll take it.' And he said 'Okay. Give me an hour.' Within a half hour, he called me and said 'Okay, it's available.'"Cruise admitted his hiring was controversial, as he effectively replaced the other ring announcer, who Cruise described as a former ECW name. The hostility between them later spilled over online."I had posted something online because the ROH message board was a big thing back then," Cruise said. "And I had said 'Hey, I appreciate the opportunity and I'm looking forward to doing this, and I plan on reaching out to the previous ring announcer, just to kind of say 'Hey, I guess this is the wrestling business' or whatever.' But then I got word secondhand, like this high school 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 know what? I'm not even going to bother.' So that's kind of the way it went."If you quote this article, please credit "What Happened When" and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
