Jim Ross Explains Why He Rejected RAW Reunion Invitation

WWE held their big RAW Reunion special this week, but Jim Ross was not there. This wasn’t a big surprise seeing how he’s involved so heavily with AEW now, but it would have been nice to see him on the show.

Jim Ross spoke about rejecting WWE’s invitation during Grillin’ JR where he explained that it had nothing to do with AEW’s wishes. In fact, he didn’t return to WWE because he just didn’t want a certain segment of the IWC thinking that there was already trouble between him and AEW.

“Well, it wasn’t in anger that I refused or turned it down. I appreciated the opportunity to come back to Tampa to see all my buddies and so forth. There’s a couple of things that led to this decision, and the main thing for me was if I had gone there, there would be a certain segment of the social media society that would’ve said, ‘Uh oh, there’s trouble in paradise, JR’s looking to bail already, he’s already back with WWE, something’s wrong with AEW.'”

The RAW Reunion special went off without much of an issue and Steve Austin sold a ton of beer in the process. In the end, it might have been for the best that Jim Ross declined WWE’s invitation because then a clip would forever exist of Jim Ross appearing on RAW during his time with AEW. This is not the impression that he wanted to give off.

The good news is that Jim Ross will be returning to television on a weekly basis as All Elite Wrestling’s new television show debuts on TNT starting on October 2nd.