Jim Ross responds to D-Von Dudley’s racism allegations
Last year, WWE veteran D-Von Dudley dropped the bomb when he charged current AEW commentator and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross with racism allegations. While, Ross later responded and denied them, Dudley recently followed up on the allegations and shared more details about the incident. Now, just a few days later, Ross decided to not stay silent and responded to Dudley’s comments.
Speaking on the latest edition of the Grilling JR podcast, Ross responded and claimed that he’s not a racist and never has been one.
“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),” Ross continued.
“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.“
Former WWE wrestler Maven had also reached out to Conrad Thompson and suggested the idea of Ross and Dudley meeting to discuss and settle out their differences. However, Ross claimed that while he is open to the idea of meeting D-Von because he ‘likes’ him, he is not interested in making a “TV show out of it” as well as monetize it.
Suffering from several recent health scares, Ross made his AEW return on their latest January 7th, 2026 edition of Dynamite.
Shounak Chakrabarti is an experienced sports journalist with a lifelong passion for athletics and storytelling. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Journalism from the University of Leeds and joined F4WOnline in 2025.
Shounak takes particular interest in soccer, closely following top clubs like Real Madrid and Arsenal. Beyond sports, he enjoys fiction writing, photography, gaming, and cinema.