Dean Malenko recently had brain surgery to treat Parkinson’s symptoms

That per Jim Ross, who caught up with his old friend on Wednesday when he returned to AEW after some time off dealing with his own health issues.

After some time away to heal up, Jim Ross returned to AEW on Wednesday night’s Dynamite. That gave him a chance to catch up with some old friends, one of whom has been dealing with health issues of his own — former ECW/WCW/WWE wrestler and current AEW producer Dean Malenko.

Malenko has discussed living with Parkinson’s disease in the past, including on a 2021 episode of Talk Is Jericho. In that interview, he talked about the shakes he experiences as a result of Parkinson’s:

“My 15-year-old, if I’m shaking, she’ll come over and put her hand on me and then she starts shaking and just have fun with it. There’s nothing you can do about it. I am not going to get rid of it. It’s always going to be there. Hopefully, with modern medicine and going forward, they can slow this down at one point, and if not, I’ll deal with it whenever.”

Modern medicine apparently came up with something that was worth a try. On the new episode of his Grilling JR podcast, Ross reports that Malenko recently had brain surgery to address at least that one symptom of his disease:

“I saw Dean Malenko. Malenko’s had some health issues. I saw him there. And he had brain surgery and it stops his shakes form the Parkinson’s and it has, he’s had the surgery. He’s such a sweetheart of a guy.”

JR went on to put over how valuable Malenko is to AEW, as “he’s really, really good” at coaching talent. Malenko was also a producer for WWE for many years before he left the company in 2019, joining AEW shortly after.

Join us in wishing Ross and Malenko the best, and check out the full episode of Grilling JR here.

H/t: Wrestling Observer and Wrestling Inc for transcription