Jim Ross said watching the crowd at the original All In in 2018 is what made him open to Tony Khan’s pitch to join AEW, and that Khan running the company’s booking without a committee has impressed him lately. Ross covered both on the latest episode of Grilling JR, the podcast he co-hosts with Conrad Thompson.
All In took place on September 1, 2018 at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, promoted independently by Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks in association with Ring of Honor. Tickets sold out in under half an hour, and the show drew 11,263 fans, the largest crowd for a non-WWE wrestling event in the United States since 2009. It is widely viewed as the forerunner to AEW, which was formed the following January. Ross and Thompson were both in attendance, with Ross arriving partway through the event. He was not part of the broadcast team; commentary that night was handled by Don Callis, Excalibur and Ian Riccaboni.
“Seeing that crowd is what made me very open to Tony Khan’s recruiting and the opportunities he was going to present me, because I saw that we could do something special, or I could be a part of something special,” Ross said.
Ross said Thompson was just as fired up that night.
“You were enthusiastic that night too,” Ross said. “We were both like kids in a candy store because we got a new toy to play with.”
The timing fits the record. Ross’s WWE contract expired on March 29, 2019, and AEW announced his signing on April 3, 2019, a three-year deal as commentator and senior advisor that the company billed as the most lucrative in commentary history. His first AEW appearance came at Double or Nothing on May 25, 2019.
Later in the episode, Ross turned to how Khan operates now, discussing the September 9 Rebel Heart edition of Dynamite. That show, held at Akins Ford Arena in Athens, Georgia, honoured AEW original Tanea Brooks, known as Rebel, who was diagnosed with ALS in March 2026, and raised awareness and funds for I AM ALS and Team Gleason. The same broadcast opened with a tribute to Andy Williams, known as The Butcher, who died earlier that month at 48.
“Think about this: these projects that we’re discussing are dumped into one person’s lap,” Ross said. “He doesn’t have a booking committee. I’m not a big proponent of booking committees in general, quite frankly, and I’ve got my own reasons, but he’s pretty much a solo ship.”
Ross said Khan’s recent booking decisions and the way AEW has been formatting its shows have stood out to him.
“Some of the things he’s been doing lately, and how they’ve been formatting the show, has really impressed me, really impressed me,” Ross said. “They’re building a hell of a talent roster.”
Khan books AEW himself, a setup that has drawn both criticism and defence across the company’s run, and one Ross has spoken favourably about before. His comments here frame it as a workload point as much as a creative one: a show like Rebel Heart, built around a tribute segment, a benefit tie-in and an in-memoriam opening alongside a regular television card, lands on one desk rather than being split across a writing team.
Ross has been sidelined from regular AEW commentary for much of the past year while dealing with a series of health issues, and has said he hopes to return for All Out on September 26 in Hoffman Estates, the same suburb that hosted All In in 2018. If that happens, it would put him back on the call in the building where the crowd he credits with selling him on the company turned out eight years ago.
