Jim Ross admits significant mistake during Mike Tyson's AEW appearance
Jim Ross is a regular part of AEW as a member of the announcer table alongside Tony Schiavone and Excalibur. On a recent episode of AEW, Mike Tyson came to the show, flanked by some legends from the world of Mixed Martial arts. Henry Cejudo, Vitor Belfort, and Rashad Evans would all accompany Tyson, but it would only be Cejudo whose name was mentioned by Jim Ross on television, while Belfort and Evans were not.
Jim Ross, on his Grilling JR podcast, talked about the mistake that happened in AEW and why the two did not have their names mentioned.
Jim Ross admits AEW's mistake in not mentioning Mike Tyson's accompanying MMA fighter's names
Jim Ross admitted that when it came to mentioning the names of Evans and Belfort on AEW Dynamite, the commentary team made a mistake. Evans and Belfort were both camouflaged and they did not see them.
"Tyson came out to confront Chris Jericho, and he had with him four MMA legends, and we didn't mention them. We mentioned Henry Cejudo and Mike was the focal point, but the other fellas that were there — Rashad Evans, he was not mentioned because we didn't know he was part of the entourage. Vitor Belfort, same deal. They were in a mass group and they were kinda camouflaged."
He went on to admit that the intent was to get everyone over and that they were not actually trying to not mention them. The AEW commentary team had no idea who were to be a part of the entourage as no one from AEW's backstage team told them. While Jim Ross had seen Cejudo and thus mentioned him, the other two had not been seen.
"The main thing about that was that we didn't mention it and we 'no-sold' it. That was not our intent to no-sell anybody. The intent was to get everyone over. But no one told me, Excalibur, or Tony, who all was going to be in the entourage. So consequently, we did not know who was there. It was all about Tyson. I saw Henry Cejudo earlier in the day, I did not see Rashad Evans earlier in the day, I did not see Vitor Belfort earlier in the day. No one told us they were there."
Jim Ross also said that he was angry later after the job was done, and he was feeling really badly for the two fighters, as they had come out to appear on television in AEW, only to not even be acknowledged by name.
"I ask after the fact, I was kinda p***ed, to be honest with you. We should have done a better job with that, all of us. There was a breakdown of communications, growing pains. It's not the end of the world, but I felt badly for those guys. If they watched it back, they would be like, 'H**l, we didn't even get mentioned.' You know they were there to get on television. I felt badly about that, as we didn't do our jobs as three announcer guys. But we didn't know! Rashad had a new hairstyle, he didn't look like he used to look. Vitor Belfort is kind of an average looking dude."
Jim Ross is a senior commentator and has been a part of wrestling commentary for a long time now. While he made his name in WWE, Jim Ross is now a vital part of AEW programming.