AEW: Jim Ross Taking Break to Heal Leg Injury, AEW Reportedly Not Airing Collision Show on Week of Dec. 30, More News

AEW

Nov 9, 2023

Jim Ross Announces He’s Taking Break from AEW to Heal His Leg More

A recent episode of the Grilling JR podcast featured co-host Jim Ross stating that he will be taking a few weeks off from AEW in order to heal up his leg some more over a injury he suffered from a fall incident this past June.

“I’m gonna take some time off, starting this week. I’m not gonna be in [Oakland]. But my doctor believes that if I take a few weeks off, I’m not sure how many, we’ll see, it’s gotta heal, that being off an airplane for a few weeks will be good for my leg to heal, so what’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take a few weeks off. I’m not gonna be on TV for a while until I can navigate the waters a little bit and get in that deep water. I love what I’m doing. We have a unique roster. There’s so many guys that we need to help as much as possible get over, but that goes for any wrestling TV show. That’s their objective. You have one goal when you’re on television in pro wrestling. Get the talent over. So I love doing that. I love that role, I love helping these young kids who ask questions. ‘Did you watch my match’ or ‘Would you watch my match’ or ‘What do you think about this?’ So I’m gonna take some time off to get my leg to heal. I’ve been suffering with this shit for almost two years. How much good barbecue can a country boy eat? So somewhere along the way, I gotta turn the corner and get better. I’m not in a great deal of pain except when I get to the city I’m flying to, my leg swells up like a cantaloupe, and it hurts like hell. So I want to try to not travel, see how that affects me, and go from there. So I’ll be missing for a couple weeks. I’ll keep everybody posted here. I’m feeling good, I feel strong. I feel motivated. I feel like I’m lucky that I’m working for TK. He’s the one that brought up the fact that we want you healthy for the long run. So he’s been taking very good care of me. I really do appreciate what he’s doing for me and that he’s paying attention.”

Ross also gave his thoughts about the future of his career in AEW.

“I have a contract that’s in place, I tend to honor it. It’s still got a few months left, and Tony Khan has indicated to me, as early as this week, at least to my representative Barry Bloom, that he’d like for me to stay. I’m not looking to go anywhere. It’s just that I need to heal. That’s all. Simplistically as that. My leg needs to heal, and the good news is that the wound is getting much better, so I am healing. I just gotta get better. It’s not a matter of pain tolerance. The pain comes when I get to the city I’m flying to. Flying is the enemy right now. So if I can heal a little bit more, then flying becomes less of an issue. With this job, I can’t do it without flying. So flying is a necessary evil, if you want to use that term, and that’s kind of how I’m approaching it. So I have no plans on leaving AEW. I like working for Tony. Tony’s been good to me, he’s taken great care of me. We just have a very unique relationship. I’m not high maintenance, even with a bad leg and stuff. I don’t want to be high maintenance.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

AEW Reportedly Not Airing Collision Episode on Week of December 30th

As noted before, AEW will be holding a pay-per-view event called Worlds End on December 30th at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Long Island, New York.

Mat Men Pro Wrestling’s Andrew Zarian reported on Twitter that his sources stated that AEW officials currently do not have any plans as of Wednesday to air a new episode of Collision during the week of their Worlds End event.

As of today, I’m hearing AEW won’t be airing Collision the week of the Worlds End PPV pic.twitter.com/16N0LOfa1Q
— Andrew Zarian (@AndrewZarian) November 8, 2023

AEW News & Notes

AEW held three dark matches prior to the start of Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Portland, Oregon. These were Nick Wayne defeating Carl Randers in a singles match, Powerhouse Hobbs defeating “Pretty” Peter Avalon in a singles match, and The Butcher & The Blade defeating Colt Cabana & Brandon Cutler in a tag team match.

Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Portland featured AEW airing a crossover ad featuring promos by Don Callis and Kemmy Omega hyping up their upcoming 8-Man Tag Team Street Fight and footage from SEGA’s Like A Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name video game.

In a recent interview with the Chillin with ICE podcast, Powerhouse Hobbs gave his thoughts on if he is interested in working for WWE in the future and his belief that AEW is equal in status to WWE as a major promotion. Hobbs stated “We’re on the same level as them. We’re their competitors. They’re on national TV and we’re on national TV. We go head-to-head. We’re right on them. We’ve beat them in ratings at times. We’re right there on their neck. There are two major companies in this business, and it’s WWE and AEW. We’re right there with them. When people say, ‘Do you ever want to go to WWE?’ I tell people, we’re right there with them. If you’re watching AEW or watching WWE, I think any wrestling fan should watch all wrestling. You’re getting all types of flavors. We’re right there on their neck.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In the same interview, Powerhouse Hobbs also gave his thoughts about the “meat” chants from the crowd during his match against Miro at this past September’s AEW All Out 2023. Hobbs stated “It’s our job to tell a good story, to make everyone believe it, to put people on their toes. For instance, I went up against Miro, who is a well-known name, at our pay-per-view in Chicago, and it was a Meatfest. What I mean by that is, it’s another big guy, 270 pounds, and we’re hitting each other hard. You have thousands of people chanting ‘we want meat,’ and it was good. It was just two guys hitting each other. We actually realized we could tell a good story by just beating the hell out of each other and the fans feeding off it. It’s also just listening to what the audience wants and you have to change things on the fly. A lot of stuff we did, was not planned, it was just going off the fly and feeding off the people.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with ESPH’s The Drop on NHL podcast, Adam Copeland gave his thoughts on his belief on what separates MJF from the other younger talent in the wrestling world. Copeland stated “His confidence. You can do so much with confidence. You can make people believe with confidence. You can make people feel with confidence. Whatever feeling it is that you want to pull out of people. More than anything, that to me, is the key with him. He has supreme confidence with the microphone and he looks confident in the ring. Confidence translates, it really does. When you can tell someone is having fun doing what they’re doing, whether it’s poking the bear or whether it’s he’s everybody’s scumbag. Whatever that it, to me, it starts with confidence. That’s with any performer. Max has confidence and that’s honestly the first step. That can take ages for people and that can never happen for some people. I don’t think I fully felt comfortable until about 2005 is where I really started feeling my groove and my confidence and really come together. That’s when I started main eventing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

AEW recently announced one new match for the card of their November 10th AEW Rampage show in Oakland, California: