Jim Ross Apologizes Following AEW Collision’s Premiere, Says He’s Going to “Step Away”

Jim Ross took to Twitter hours before Saturday night’s AEW Collision pay-per-view and revealed he had suffered a fall that morning, resulting in a severely swollen black eye. However, he still traveled to Chicago for the TV episode and joined Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness at the commentary desk for the six-man tag match main event involving CM Punk, FTR, Samoa Joe, Jay White and Juice Robinson. Ross was apparently disappointed with his performance at the desk and took to Twitter afterward to apologize, then announced he’d be stepping away to heal from his injury. 

The WWE Hall of Famer originally signed with AEW to be its primary play-by-play commentator, though he no longer calls the company’s flagship show, AEW Dynamite. His current role has him calling AEW Rampage, pay-per-views and Collision though there’s no word on how long this apparent hiatus will be. Hopefully, he’ll be back in action soon.

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Ross discussed his commentary role changing last year when he started calling only half of Dynamite  —”That was a Tony Khan decision. Creatively, I was coming out before the show and doing all of Dynamite. The reception was humbling, fans were glad to see me and they expressed themselves. The reception I was getting was really good.”

“He thought the middle of the show, Dynamite, needed a boost. So JR became the booster. I come out in the middle of the show, still going to call the main events,” Ross said. “Then we all take a bathroom break and go right into taping Rampage.”

It’s only an hour, it’s kind of like an old school hour wrestling show. I like that deal,” he later added regarding Rampage. “I didn’t have any issues with at all. I’m very Mariano Rivera, go in for long relief and get results for you. That’s the deal there. Just keeping me fresh and ‘special,’ and try to give Rampage a little boost commentary-wise, selling-wise.”