Jim Ross isn’t shying away from the uncomfortable subjects.
Following his return to television at the first AEW Dynamite of the New Year of 2026 on Wednesday night at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Good Ole’ J.R.” returned with the latest episode of his official Grilling J.R. podcast with co-host Conrad Thompson.
During the episode, Ross spoke about his AEW Dynamite return, and even elaborated further on the recent response to his previous comments about racism accusations made against him by WWE Hall of Fame legend D-Von Dudley.
On the January 8 episode of his “Grilling J.R.” podcast, the following exchange took place between Ross and Thompson regarding the subject:
“No problem! I’m happy to do it! I’m just not gonna put it on tape and make a TV show out of it. Period.” Conrad Thompson said he brought it up because the chatroom kept talking about it and assumed that J.R. did not want to speak on it. Ross replied, “How many times do I gotta address it to satisfy everybody? I am not a racist. I have never been a racist. Ask some of the African-American athletes that I’ve been around and worked with in my 50-year career. They’ll say the same thing, and like I said before, when you and I first talked about this, I don’t remember the first cross word I had with D-Von (Dudley). The boisterous one was Bubba (Ray Dudley). But not in a bad way. He just had no problem expressing himself and Bubba had a lot of ideas. He was a throwback. A main event guy that wanted to be involved into booking his angle, and I loved that. If more guys would do that — and today, they just wait for someone to tell ‘em what they’re gonna do tonight, and that’s the wrong approach in my opinion. But, I’d have no problem reconnecting with D-Von… I’ve never gotten mad at him. I was bewildered about how this could happen. Because like I said, I don’t remember any negative exchanges with him, and what I was allegedly said would damn sure be negative.” Thompson mentioned that Ross would not be up for trying to monetize the meeting with D-Von, and J.R. said, “I’m not. I’m not interested in that. I am interested in reconnecting with D-Von, because I like D-Von.”
For those who missed D-Von Dudley’s extensive detailing of the two racist incidents he claims to have experienced first-hand involving Jim Ross during his time in WWE, click here.
