Earlier this month, Jim Ross announced he would be taking another break from appearing on AEW television. On his Grilling JR podcast, JR discussed his health and his ongoing relationship with AEW. He said:

“I’m pretty good, Conrad. Had a busy week at the doctors’, and trying to get all these little things taken care of. They’re not little things if you let them go. So anyway, I’m getting better, I think. Still gonna be off work for a few more weeks, and then we’ll just move on, and hopefully it’ll work out. I had a long doctor’s meeting yesterday, over two hours. You know how it goes. Getting old is the sh*ts.”

“I have a contract that’s in place, I tend to honor it. It’s still got a few months left, and Tony Khan has indicated to me, as early as this week, at least to my representative Barry Bloom, that he’d like for me to stay. I’m not looking to go anywhere. It’s just that I need to heal. That’s all. Simplistically as that. My leg needs to heal, and the good news is that the wound is getting much better, so I am healing. I just gotta get better. It’s not a matter of pain tolerance. The pain comes when I get to the city I’m flying to. Flying is the enemy right now. So if I can heal a little bit more, then flying becomes less of an issue. With this job, I can’t do it without flying. So flying is a necessary evil, if you want to use that term, and that’s kind of how I’m approaching it. So I have no plans on leaving AEW. I like working for Tony. Tony’s been good to me, he’s taken great care of me. We just have a very unique relationship. I’m not high maintenance, even with a bad leg and stuff. I don’t want to be high maintenance.”