Jim Ross says a return to the AEW commentary desk at All Out is in the cards if his recovery keeps going the way it has been.
Ross, 74, had a shunt procedure on August 12th to drain excess fluid from his brain. His doctors advised him against flying to London for All In, and he watched the show from home. All Out is on September 26 in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.
“It’s in the cards. If I continue to improve at the rate that I currently am, no doubt about it,” Ross said on Grilling JR. “Because it’s a nonstop flight from OKC to Chicago. I’m not flying to London. I’m flying a short hop, so to speak. Two hours, and to me that’s a pretty short hop.”
He said the call is not about whether he can do the job.
“I’ve made it very known that I want to return to help on some of the main events as soon as I’m able to travel better,” Ross said. “As far as just looking at the match, interpreting what I see, and articulating it, I could do that now. But they’re worried about my falling, and they want me to get a little bit more steady on my feet.”
The immediate obstacle is not the surgery. Ross fell at home on the morning of the operation and broke two toes on his left foot, which he did not know about until he was x-rayed at the hospital.
“That slowed me down a little bit, because it’s hard to keep your balance when you wear a walking boot on your left foot and a flip flop or a tennis shoe on your right,” he said. “If my broken toes aren’t an issue, then I’m going to be there.”
Ross said the decision to keep him home for All In came from both his surgeon and his general practitioner, and that the concern was a fall on the plane or in London rather than his condition itself.
“You don’t want to bust your ass and fall in London, and they put you in a London hospital,” he said. “If I’m going to be hospitalised again, I’m going to be 10 minutes down the street in Norman Regional Hospital. So I took their advice for once.”
All In had been the target from the start. Ross posted from rehab a week after the operation saying he was a step closer to going home and that he was aiming to be on the London broadcast. The advice went the other way in the end.
He said missing the show stung.
“I would give my left testicle to have been part of the broadcast team,” Ross said.
On where he stands with the company, Ross said the pressure is not coming from that direction.
“I don’t say that Tony Khan expects me to be there. He wants me to be there if I’m able,” he said. “And he’s been great with my sickness. Never a negative call.”
He has worked through this kind of thing before. Ross fell on the way to Double or Nothing in Queens earlier this year and his back gave out once he reached the hotel, and he still called the Continental Championship match between Jon Moxley and Kyle O’Reilly the following day. The difference now is that the people around him are making the call rather than leaving it to him.
There is one other thing outstanding. Ross’ AEW deal was reported to be expiring in August, and neither he nor the company has said publicly where that stands. His comments about All Out assume he will be working, and nothing he said suggested otherwise, but the contract question has not been addressed since the surgery.
Ross has been part of AEW since its launch in 2019 and works commentary on selected matches at pay-per-views. This was the first All In he has missed.
