Jim Ross’ Twitter was hacked earlier today and a tweet pointed to a JR “family statement” which announced his “death.”

The statement linked to a Blogspot.co.uk entry where it said, “We are shocked and saddened to bring you the news that Jim Ross has sadly passed away. Long time friend @WhiteLeedsSite was with him at the time of his passing and it was said to be very peaceful. We will be making a further statement shortly.”

Despite the hackers spending zero time to try and make it even look credible, thousands of fans online mourned JR’s “death” with Twitter messages while others were – rightfully so – skeptical about it.

Meanwhile, an hour or so after his account was compromised, the @JRsBBQ Twitter account was removed and for now it leads to a page does not exist error.