Jim Ross was the latest guest on his good friend Steve Austin’s podcast and JR started the wrestling talk off with the use of chair shots, both of the unprotected and carefully calculated ilk. JR touches upon the history of chair shots in general, the use of the spot at AEW Fyter Fest between Shawn Spears and Cody Rhodes and how he thinks the weapon should be taken out of any creative process in any future storytelling of the squared circle. Austin, being an in-ring veteran, gives his take on the idea as well.
Jim Ross on the use of chair shots in wrestling:
“It’s like a lot of things in wrestling. It’s overdone: A little goes a long way and some of that stuff that we see and the chair is a perfect example, it’s a shortcut that people use as a crutch and it’s overused.”
On that chair shot with Cody and Shawn Spears:
JR: “Now I’m not a big advocate of getting hit in the head with a steel chair, in any way. I called it, I called it like I saw it, Cody turned his head, he got hit in the side of the head. At least he didn’t bust his face open cause with that chair malfunction there’s no telling what he’d look like with that, man. So I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s like calling a football play: I might want to run the ball right now and you wanna throw it, so both of us may get us a touchdown, hell I don’t know, but it’s overdone.
“I alluded to this earlier, I’ll just come out and say what I would do: I wouldn’t do anymore chair shots to the head. We’re done with that business. If I can’t have a team around me that are creative enough to get me the results of what I want in this angle or this storyline without having to scramble somebody’s brains for real then I need to find some more hands cause we got the wrong staff here. Your last original idea died of loneliness, c’mon.
“Nobody ever loses because of that, or wins more specifically. So I’d say ixnay the chairs cause they look like shit, the spots are wore out and there’s no reason to take a chance in damaging somebody’s brain over a goddamn high-spot or the finish at WrestleMania. It doesn’t make sense to me so I’d say the hell with the chairs, figure out something else and if you can’t, we need to get more creative people involved in solving this problem.”
AUSTIN: “I agree with you I think it’s overdone. In this day and age—a one-off here or there, because if you don’t make it so frequent and it is unimaginative at this point in time—but as far as taking it, that chair shot you know all of a sudden it opened up Pandora’s box for the IWC and even a bigger universe than the IWC. And to me, when I look at the chair shot, as overdone as it is, as many times as we see it, it has been a part of the professional wrestling landscape for a long time.
I’m not gonna say ‘in defense of it’ I’m just saying when you’re on the receiving end it is a calculated risk. If a guy is willing to take that risk I say more power to him, but then there comes that trust factor as well.”
JR: “Here’s the issue with that though, Steve. As long as the boys have that chair shot to the head in their pocket where they can use that on a special occasion may be different definitively than their special occasion. So as long as they have that option, they’re going to go to it as often as they because ‘this is my special occasion.'”
Plenty more to come from this episode which you can listen to in it’s entirety below:
(Transcription credit to Dominic DeAngelo for Wrestlezone.com)
Listen to “Jim Ross Talks All Elite Wresting and More!” on Spreaker.
