Jim Ross Doesn't Think AEW Will Be Outside Of Jacksonville This Year
On a recent episode of AEW Dynamite, Santana and Ortiz faced the Best Friends in a Parking Lot Fight to close out the show. Many were referring to the match as the greatest wrestling street fight of all time. Recently, Santana and Ortiz joined Bully Ray on the Busted Open Podcast to talk about the match and how they were influenced by Jerry Lynn.
During the Grilling JR Podcast, Jim Ross talked about the match between the two teams and how much he enjoyed it. Ross referred to the match as an amazing performance, and he praised the two teams for the job they did.
"People are still buzzing about that street fight we had, which I thought was one of the most amazing performances I had called in a long, long time," Ross said. "The courage those dudes showed was extraordinary. They were bleeding from places you normally don't see a pro wrestler bleed. You don't get taught in wrestling school or the indies to learn to survive in that environment.
"I thought those kids did a hell of a job, [and they] really impressed me. It kind of underscores what the company is about – young guys looking for their break, looking to create their legacy, get over, sell merch, and increase their lot in AEW. The effort is always there for us. One thing that I think any fan can say is that those guys and gals at AEW are going to give you effort, they're going to give you their money's worth. To me, that's worth a lot."
Ross continued to talk about AEWs plans for going back on the road in the near future. He said they currently have no timetable for when they will travel again, and that for now, things will remain in Jacksonville for a long time.
"There's no telling when we're going to go back on the road," Ross said. "I'm expecting AEW to stay in Jacksonville. I don't even want to say we might get back [to having fans] the 1st of [January]. You can say that if you want to, but it's an empty promise. We don't know."
Ross continued to talk about the success of AEW and how they have been competitive with the NBA.
"I'm glad AEW got a 3 year deal. We're doing numbers on TNT that are very competitive, if not exceeding, the NBA. I think we're in good company there. I think we're on the best network for us. They're very proud of our productivity so far. Our job is to get better every week and try and build our audience."
Ross also mentioned how well AEW has done with balancing their storylines and in-ring wrestling. He said you need the correct mix of the two, but AEW finds a way to do more wrestling, which he prefers.
"What we're doing in AEW is trying to balance that," Ross said. "Where you still have a backstory, still have reasons for the matches, but we want to make sure we have match time. If you look at our match time on our television shows, you'll see that we have significant match time."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Grilling JR with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.