Jim Ross has opened up about his future with AEW, revealing that his current contract is due to expire later this summer and admitting he is unsure whether Tony Khan plans to offer him a new deal.

The legendary announcer discussed the situation during a recent episode of Grilling JR after being asked if he wished he had a larger role behind the scenes in AEW beyond commentary duties. Ross has been with the company since its launch in 2019 and remains one of the most recognizable voices in professional wrestling history.

Despite speculation online about his position within the company, Ross said he is happy with where things stand right now.

“I’m pretty content, Conrad. To be honest with you, would I accept more responsibility and do more work? Of course, if asked to perform in that world, I’m happy to do it. You know, Tony Khan’s been really good to me. I see it written about online time to time, you know, Ross must have a hell of a deal, and all that, and I do have a hell of a deal. I’ve got, I’m in a good spot.”

Ross then confirmed his AEW agreement is nearing its end and explained that he recently spoke with agent Barry Bloom about what comes next.

“But I don’t have a lot more time left on my contract. I talked to Barry Bloom, my agent, he was in New York, and we chatted about my status, and I’m just gonna let it play out. I don’t know when Tony Khan wants to keep me, well, if he doesn’t, then he won’t. I sounded off flippant, I guess, but God damn, Conrad, I’ve been doing this 50 years, long time, and I enjoyed virtually every minute of it, so I’ll keep everybody posted whenever my deal is up, I think sometime in August, I believe that’s true, that’s how focused I am on my contract. I just passed the worrying about it stage.”

While Ross acknowledged uncertainty surrounding his future, he had plenty of positive things to say about AEW’s current structure and the people working behind the scenes.

“I hope I stay with them, and I enjoy the hell out of Tony Khan, and he’s got a good staff. He’s got some good people around him now too. On the wrestling side, I think he’s got his strongest. I believe that presently AEW has their strongest support staff assembled as we’ve ever had, maybe the very beginning when there’s a lot of smart people involved, but I think it’ll be a long time.”

Ross also shared that he is stepping away from book writing for now as he evaluates what the next chapter of his career could look like once the summer ends.

“I’m gonna take a little break in it. After this summer, I’m not sure what my future holds, you know, with AEW. I think it’ll be a long time for writing another book.”

Cody Rhodes will be making his third defense of this WWE Championship reign against GUNTHER at Clash in Italy, having dethroned Drew McIntyre for the title in March and seen off Randy Orton at WrestleMania in April. 

GUNTHER will be challenging for the lineal World Championship for the first time, having previously held the World Heavyweight Championship twice after setting a 666-day record with the Intercontinental Championship. He retired John Cena via submission in December, then AJ Styles in January, and then answered Paul Heyman’s call to action against Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 42, defeating him and supposedly cashing in his favor to secure a move to “WWE SmackDown” and a WWE Championship contract at Clash in Italy. Seem straightforward enough?

Well, GUNTHER had attacked Rhodes before the contract had been presented to him, thus confirming to the fans that this was the path forward – GUNTHER vs. Rhodes for the title. He was the next week presented with the contract, which he refused to sign because Rhodes had come out during the signing to say address the attack from the week before. 

Thus ensued weeks of Rhodes and General Manager Nick Aldis chasing a signature from GUNTHER to cement the match, to which Royce Keys sought to make use of and threw his own hat in the ring.  GUNTHER then beat Keys in a Number One Contendership match and still refused to sign the contract, despite the match already being announced, advertised, and definitely going to happen. 

Gradually as the shenanigans have gone on, any interest in this match for the marquee title bout it is has diminished. GUNTHER is legitimately one of the best wrestlers in the world, a natural villain, and Rhodes is also no slouch in the ring and just so happens to be objectively the biggest babyface in wrestling today. Rhodes is one of the rare few to hold a clean win over the “Ring General” in WWE, with just Ilja Dragunov, Bron Breakker, and Sami Zayn before him. 

That would have been enough to justify much of the rhyme and reason behind this match being made. GUNTHER would have been a credible enough challenger even before he had retired Cena, Styles, and beat Rollins at ‘Mania. But the route has been so long-winded that this match feels like mercy rather than spectacle. GUNTHER is finally facing Rhodes after a frankly nonsensical build for no reason other than to kill time.

That’s the sort of stuff that Nick Khan is drawing on in Senate Hearings to justify why boxing is broken, and here it is being scripted into a show that’s choosing to be difficult to follow. That’s a dud, unfortunate as it may be.

Written by Max Everett