Jim Ross Discusses How His Thoughts On AEW All Out Went, Jericho As Champ and More

Jim Ross recently appeared on Busted Open Radio and discussed his thoughts on the recent AEW All Out pay-per-view. Below are the highlights, transcribed courtesy of 411Mania.com.

On how he thought the show went:

 “I loved the effort. It always starts for me with the effort of the talents. Everybody’s skillsets are different, we’ve got a very diverse array of talent on our small roster. So I enjoyed the show.”

On the commentary work:

“It’s always challenging, you know, I’m working with two guys who are very talented. But they’re very — Excalibur’s been around in the indy world out in California, but Goldenboy is not a wrestling guy. He’s a fan, and he’s got great skills, but we’re still finding our place and our rhythm for lack of a better term. And we’re working hard at it. We just don’t get enough reps to make those big improvements from one show to the next. So that’s a work in progress, and hopefully adding Tony Schiavone with Excalibur and myself on the TNT show, we’ll have another sound and we’ll have to get used to those guys another time. So that was tough for me a little bit.”

On people who argue Chris Jericho is too old to be champion: 

“When you’re a main event guy and you’re closing the show, you’re doing it for a reason. And hopefully that reason is because you’ve earned that spot, and you can deliver. Jericho will always deliver. And the issue of ageism or the fact that he’s in his late 40s – if that’s the reason that we’re not making him the champion, that’s kind of a lame reason. Our champion now has name identity, and he’s a name that people understand and know. The other thing is that he can have a good to a great match with just about anybody. So that versatility is important for the champion to have. He also can handle the pressure. he can do a lot of things that are gonna be required for the new AEW champion. So, I didn’t have a problem with it.”

On not doing a match between the AAA Tag Team Championship match and the main event:

 “The only thing I might have done in hindsight. Hindsight’s always 20/20, fellas, you guys know, is I might have put a match between the Young Bucks and the Lucha Brothers, before Jericho and Hangman Page. In hindsight I probably would have done that. Because the ladder match was just damn near impossible to follow seamlessly. That’s why Jericho and Hangman I think started out slow, to let the audience settle back in. But if you have that [in-between] match after the ladder match, it gives fans a chance to regroup, go to the can, go get a hot dog, get a beer or whatever. Then come back and settle back in for the main event. In hindsight that’s probably what I would have done.”

On how the main event delivered: 

“I thought they followed [the ladder match] well. The deal was, at the end of the match, did they have the audience? … They meaning Jericho and Hangman, and they did. So I had no issues with it. Guys, you know everything is subjective. There’s a lot of right ways to do a finish. There’s a lot of right ways to end a match. And sometimes when those decisions are made, and you don’t agree with them as a fan, you take liberties to start gutting and quartering people … I thought Jericho was a good choice, I’ve got no second guesses on that deal. I don’t know if we set the table as good as we could for Jericho and Page in that last match. Because again, the show was very long, maybe too long. And the fans were tired, they peaked. But they got back into it thanks to the work of those two guys in the last match.”