Jim Ross On Which Top AEW Star Regularly Runs Ideas By Him
On a recent episode of the Grilling JR Podcast, Jim Ross spoke about AEW wrestlers having a say in what they do creatively. Ross spoke about how AEW superstar Chris Jericho has a heavy input in everything he does creatively for the company and mentioned another superstar he speaks to on a regular basis.
"Chris Jericho has a hand in everything he does," Ross said. "And thank god for it. I'll tell you another guy that we have, Darby Allin has a great mind. I'm very privileged to have the opportunities to have private conversations with Darby. We have a very good relationship and he runs ideas by me all the time. Some of them I agree with, and some of them I don't. The good thing he knows is he's going to get an honest opinion from me. He's a good kid and he's learning early, the more input you can have in your creativity, you increase your odds for success."
At WrestleMania Backlash in May, WWE cut a multi million dollar deal with Netflix's "Army of the Dead" film to have a Zombie Lumberjack Match featuring Damien Priest and The Miz. AEW star Chris Jericho was critical of the zombies being on a WWE pay per view, joking that it killed the wrestling business. Ross spoke about the idea of storylines today being more reality based rather than involving more supernatural and fantasy stuff.
"It seems to me like in today's world of pro wrestling, the reality based stuff is hitting a cord more than the fantasy stuff," Ross said. "Hypnotizing people, zombies. Everything for the name and sake of entertainment is a weak ass excuse. 'Oh, we're just trying to entertain the audience,' that's such a p**** way out of it. Keep drinking that kool-aid buddy, save your money. It's just not the way to engulf an audience, the audience has got to relate to something and every character that you put on television."
On a previous episode of the podcast, Ross also revealed his favorite AEW match of all time and named Dustin Rhodes and Cody on that list. Speaking of Dustin Rhodes, JR had high praise for the 50 year old and talked about how much he enjoyed working as Goldust.
"He's 50 now for god sakes and he's better than 98% of the people working on TV every week," Ross said. "I think he had his best days as Goldust. He owned that character and made it his. Everything else was in his dad's image. I saw more creative happiness in Dustin than when he was Goldust, refining and getting that character together then any other 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.