AEW announcer Jim Ross believes the company should sign Rusev, who was released by WWE last week.
Ross did a bonus episode of his “Grilling JR” show on Patreon and discussed last week’s cuts. JR had good things to say about everyone but he stressed that if he was going to hire any of those talents right now, Rusev would be his #1 priority. He praised Rusev as the kind of talent who could be elevated to main event status quickly, in any company.
“I think that Rusev is the kind of guy that you can bring in and he’d be a great contender for any title,” Ross said (H/T to Wrestlingnews.co). “Would I like to see a Moxley/Rusev match? Of course, I would. I’m a wrestling fan, why wouldn’t I? To me, he would be my priority.”
Ross did say that this is not something he has suggested to anyone in AEW yet.
He continued, “I haven’t asked that, I haven’t contributed that piece of information. Our fans are hearing it from me first out of my head. But he’s the kind of guy – they missed on him. WWE missed on Rusev and they gave him a great build, the invested … and they just all of a sudden boom. I don’t know what was the reason for the boom. He worked on his body, he’s lean and he looks great, he’s young…”
“There’s got to be some semblance of a reason that the massive push for him was cut short. I don’t know what that reason is. I’ve never heard any scandalous tales about the guy. I find him to be a soft-hearted, well-raised guy. Meaning he’s polite and he’s a decent human being. Rusev would be my priority. That’s who I’d want to go after first because I can see him having some major pay-per-view main event matches with a variety of top talents in our company AEW. Anyone would be smart to hire him.”
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