Jim Ross says his brain surgery is happening this Wednesday. The 74-year-old broadcaster gave co-host Conrad Thompson the date on the latest episode of Grilling JR, confirming the procedure will take place in Norman, Oklahoma.
Surgeons will implant a shunt to drain excess fluid off his brain, the buildup Ross has blamed for the memory problems that have followed him since the spring.
“I got a big week coming up. My surgery is this Wednesday in Norman,” Ross said. “I don’t want to say I’m looking forward to it, but I guess I really am, to get to that point and get it over with. I have never had brain surgery before, so I’m getting a shunt put in my brain.”
Ross said doctors told him the hospital stay would be shorter than he’d braced for. “That surprised me and made me happy, but still, I would have guessed longer.”
A Month Of Waiting For A Date
Ross first revealed the surgery on July 9, on the first Grilling JR he recorded after coming home from a hospital stay that ran close to 40 days. He said then that he expected to be in surgery within a week or so.
That stay began when he passed out at his home and was found there. He was discharged at the end of June, and by mid-July the operation had been booked for sometime in August with no firm date attached. Ross has said the procedure is not optional if he wants to get better, and he hasn’t pretended it doesn’t frighten him.
Thompson framed Wednesday as the end of it. “We think you guys have finally cracked the code, and we’re going to have good old JR back to normal this time a week from now,” he told Ross.
“Well, let’s hope so,” Ross replied. “We’ll see. We’ll see. I hope so too, quite frankly.”
AEW Contract Runs Out The Same Month
The timing puts the surgery inside the same window as the end of Ross’s AEW deal. He said in May that his contract expires sometime in August and that he’d handed the situation to his longtime agent, Barry Bloom, rather than chase it himself. Neither Ross nor the company has announced a renewal.
Ross has been with AEW since the promotion launched in 2019, and his schedule has shrunk to a match or two per event as his health has limited travel. He called the Jon Moxley vs. Kyle O’Reilly match at Double or Nothing in May, then was hospitalized weeks later.
Ross also paused on the episode to mark the death of Dory Funk Jr., who died Tuesday at 85. “I felt terrible about the passing of Dory Funk Jr. A class act guy, and man, I had so much respect.”
