AEW: Grizzled Young Veterans to Make AEW Debut at April 27th Collision Show, Jim Ross on His Current AEW Commentary Schedule, More News

Apr 26, 2024

Grizzled Young Veterans Announced to Make AEW Debut at Saturday’s Collision Show

AEW recently announced that the Grizzled Young Veterans, James Drake & Zack Gibson, will be making their official debut in the company at this Saturday’s AEW Collision show at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida.

In a video posted by AEW, the Grizzled Young Veterans called out The Acclaimed for a match at this Saturday’s show.

EXCLUSIVE! @Lexynair stands by with a WORLD-RENOWNED tag team set to DEBUT on #AEWCollision… 👀👀👀@ZackGibsonGYV | @JamesDrakePro pic.twitter.com/tsXWiXKcwX
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) April 25, 2024

Jim Ross Comments on His Current AEW Commentary Schedule

A recent episode of the Grilling JR podcast featured co-host Jim Ross giving his thoughts about if he likes AEW recently moving to a monthly pay-per-view events schedule.

“Yeah, I do because it gives you ample time, if you think about it, and you put your creative hats on, from a talent standpoint and an administration standpoint, it’s a good thing. It gives you time to build. It gives you a month, and in today’s world, a month is an eternity, in today’s quick-process mindset that we are seemingly all in. So I like it. For me, that’s my schedule. Tony Khan hired me back to do pay-per-views, so once a month is great for me personally, and I hope that somewhere along the way there’s another assignment for two thrown in there at times, either on Dynamite or Collision.”

Ross also gave his thoughts about his current AEW commentary schedule in the company.

“Yeah, pretty much. I think pay-per-views is what Tony had slotted me to come in and contribute to. They’re gonna be once a month, and that’s when I’ll be there. But I would not be surprised if somewhere down the road, I suggested this to him, maybe me doing a Collision on the go-home show, the last Collision before the pay-per-view, I think that might be a thought. But you know how us old carny types are, we’re just always trying to get ourselves booked. So there’s that. I enjoy working. When you get to be 72 years old, and you’ve had a 50-year career, you really appreciate working. It’s just part of my DNA. I have miserable weeks the weeks of the pay-per-views because I am so looking forward to them that the time doesn’t pass fast enough.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

AEW News & Notes

As noted before, AEW recently announced that this Saturday’s AEW Collision show in Jacksonville, Florida will feature Swerve Strickland’s first promo since winning the AEW World Championship at AEW Dynasty. Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that the reason why AEW officials held off Strickland’s first promo as AEW World Champion for this Saturday’s Collision show was due to the show will be airing right after a NBA Playoffs game on TNT. AEW officials reportedly wanted Strickland’s first promo as champion be on a show that will have more people watching it at the start due to the expected huge lead-in viewership from the NBA.

Variety reported that a new wrestling-based action horror film titled Dark Match starring Chris Jericho is currently scheduled to premiere this Fall.

Brandon Thurston reported in a recent episode of the Post X Wrestlenomics podcast that AEW had sold 6,287 tickets for a live gate of $401,373 forn this past Sunday’s AEW Dynamite event at the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, Misosuri based on a recent audit from Pollstar. Thurston reported that this is the lowest live gate for an AEW pay-per-view event that he is currently aware of.

Mark Briscoe recently announced on Twitter the birth of his new son Matthew Jamin Pugh.

Rob Viper reported on Twitter that RUSH is currently expected to make his return to AEW as early as this Saturday’s AEW Collision and Rampage shows in Jacksonville, Florida. Viper reported that RUSH had told a local promoter that he would not be able to work at his scheduled booking for their event this Saturday in Tijuana, Mexico due to his AEW obligations.

This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida was notable for the show being plagued with serious audio quality issues throughout the whole show. AEW CEO Tony Khan recently stated on Twitter that the cause of this issue was on TBS’s end of the feed and only affected the TBS broadcast of the show. Khan stated “Thank you all watching #AEWDynamite now! We’re having an exciting show, live worldwide now! Our partner TBS is having some audio issues on tonight’s show, thankfully we understand our other worldwide partners aren’t affected, but TBS is working to fix the issue immediately!“

Willow Nightingale recently reflected on Twitter about her TBS Championship victory at this past Sunday’s AEW Dynasty event. Nightingale stated “This morning it feels like I’ve experienced the full range of human emotion, but the most prominent feeling has been gratitude. Thank you to all who’ve ever encouraged me, wished me well, supported me or congratulated me. I appreciate every one of you.“

In a recent episode of the What Happened When with Tony Schiavone podcast, co-host Tony Schiavone gave his thoughts about Swerve Strickland’s AEW World Championship victory at AEW Dynasty. Schiavone stated “I think it’s well-deserved. Swerve is not only a great performer, but he is a wonderful young man. If anybody deserves getting the run, being a champion, it’s him, and I’m very, very happy for him. I have a lot of time for him. Of course, I worked with him in MLW for a bit, so I knew Swerve before we all came into AEW, and I was really excited when we brought him in. So yeah, good job, Swerve. I hope it’s a good, long title run.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

As noted before, Grayson Waller gave a dig at AEW while promoting WWE’s upcoming SmackDown show in Jacksonville stating “Finally, some good wrestling in Jacksonville. I feel like it’s been years since we’ve seen some really good wrestling in Jacksonville.” In a recent interview with News4Jax, Swerve Strickland gave his thoughts about Waller’s recent dig at AEW. Strickland stated “Obviously [it was a shot at AEW]. I love the subtleties. This person that said that, congratulations on their championship gold. Amazing. You were awesome when you were watching me in the seats when I was being a champion over where you were as well. Happy to see where you progressed to, but let’s be real, we are the best wrestling. Not just in Jacksonville, but anywhere. In the world. I stand on business on that.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a different interview with the One Nation Radio podcast, Swerve Strickland gave his thoughts about Shingo Takagi being his choice of an opponent for a match at this year’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event. Strickland stated “I’ve been a Shingo [Takagi] fan for like 15 years. I met him many times, been on shows with him. Never worked him. Matter of fact, this Forbidden Door will be the first time I’m on the main show, so that’s why I’m saying, if I can be a tool or a conduit for somebody to take a story and ride off of that and become something from that, I hope that helps. Because last year’s Revolution, I wasn’t on it. The first year’s Revolution, I debuted. Forbidden Door, haven’t been on the main show. All throughout the year, losing throughout the summer over and over and over again, but I still found a way. Hopefully, that can help people that are stuck in a way, whatever they’re doing, it doesn’t have to be wrestling, whatever career they’re trying to take on or whatever, my story can help inspire y’all to just find a way. But for Forbidden Door, I think Shingo would be one of my favorite people that I’ve watched for years. That would be someone I would like to tie it up with.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the 105.3 The Fan’s K&C Masterpiece radio show, AEW CEO Tony Khan gave his thoughts about why he does not get along with Eric Bischoff. Khan stated “It’s an interesting question. There haven’t been that many wrestling companies that have risen to international prominance. There aren’t that many wrestling companies in modern history that have sold tens of thousands of tickets and hundreds of thousands pay-per-views. In that sense, Eric and I do have something in common. I do respect his accomplishments. He just has a show, a podcast, that is largely devoted to taking shots at us and a lot of it isn’t rational or logical or truthful. I don’t think those things seem to matter to him anymore. I do respect what he accomplished with WCW. It was a great company. In that sense, I do respect him. We’re on TNT and TBS, that’s something I have in common with Eric, there aren’t a lot of people that produced a lot of wrestling shows on TBS and TNT. That’s one thing we do have in common.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)