This week on “Grilling JR” with Jim Ross and Conrad Thompson, they cover WWE SummerSlam 2000 and all of the big news items from around that time.
The topics include the main event for the WWE Champion between The Rock, Triple H, and Kurt Angle. They also talk about other notable matchups like Kane vs. The Undertaker in a No DQ match, Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho in a two-out-of-three falls match, the TLC tag team match featuring The Dudleyz, The Hardys and Edge & Christian, and much more.
Here are just a couple of highlights from the show:
Ross commented on whether he would want to be part of an angle in AEW: “It ain’t going to happen in AEW. That ship has sailed. No fuc*ing way that J.R. is going to get involved physically in another wrestling angle. We have talents that need to get over. I do not need to get over. I’m not getting in the ring under any circumstances. Some may say, oh, J.R. is being a d*ck. No, I’m 68 years old. Let’s be realistic here. I’m not going in there and having a health issue or something like that. The stress for me to get in the ring was the most intense stress I had ever encountered in my life in pro wrestling because again, I wasn’t good at it. I didn’t think I could run the plays that the guys I wanted to run. Everybody I got in the ring with had to dumb down their game to accommodate me. I didn’t think that was right. I was happy to pass on the TV time. Tony Khan is too smart and our focus is to get talents over in AEW, not announcers. I appreciate that philosophy from the boss.”
Ross was asked what he thought about the angle where his hat was stolen in WWE in 2000: “If I said something about it, it was oh, J.R., you just don’t get it. It’s all for entertainment. Well, who is entertained by it, you (Vince). Maybe that’s all it took. Maybe we are entertaining an audience of one. My sense of it was most of our audience, based on what I saw, yea, you get a nice pop when Lawler makes his comeback, he intervenes, or comes to J.R.’s rescue, but, come on. It was not a mass appeal angle. I think it had some personal overtures because to be honest with you, I don’t know if after the Garden at the Royal Rumble when Taz debuted that there were any significant plans to utilize him in the ring. If you don’t have long term plans for somebody and you do this angle, what is the motive for the angle. Well, we can use J.R. and his popularity to get us a number. It worked. I got good ratings but it could have been somebody else getting those good ratings. In any event, that ship has sailed. It should never have left the shore quite frankly. But, nonetheless, that will not happen again in AEW. It makes no sense.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Grilling JR with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
