Jim Ross Assesses Costco Guy AJ's AEW Debut

Despite some trepidation from fans heading into AEW Full Gear, the Zero Hour match between QT Marshall and "Costco Guy" AJ seems to have been a booming success. In particular, AJ's performance, as well as the appearances of his sons, Big Justice and The Rizzler, were well received from the crowd, particularly after it was revealed that AJ wrestled, and won, the match despite breaking his foot earlier in the day.

Still, one wouldn't be shocked to hear that old school minded wrestling fans, pundits, wrestlers, or announcers may not have been into the match as others. Don't count Jim Ross among those, however. During the latest "Grilling JR," Ross gave the AJ-QT match two thumbs up.

"It was a great thing for his sons," Ross said. "They saw dad sacrifice pain and continue on. And I thought he and QT did a good job. If you haven't seen it folks, you can check it out on YouTube or something. But it's a good outing for him. And he didn't embarrass the company, for god's sake. It was entertaining, I liked it."

Ross doubled down on the idea that celebrities in wrestling is a positive, and not a negative.

"It's a good thing," Ross said. "It don't hurt nothing. The purists, you know, who want them back in wool tights and holding onto the tag rope, which I do adhere to, that kind of thing, they're not going to like it. You can't make them like it. But it gives another ring in the circus...So I'm for those things. WWE has done a good job over the years of using celebrities. We've done that here in AEW. Mike Tyson, Shaq. So we've done it before. Not quite to the extreme that we did it Saturday with the boys of Costco."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Grilling JR" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription