AEW’s Justin Roberts on how Arizona’s wrestling scene shaped his career

Justin Roberts has fond memories of Arizona’s indie wrestling scene. Long before he wielded a microphone as a ring announcer for All Elite Wrestling, the Chicago native could be found hyping up crowds and introducing up-and-coming grapplers at local nightclubs like the now-defunct Bash on Ash in Tempe.

In the early 2000s, the Chicago native cut his teeth with Arizona promotions across the state like Impact Zone Wrestling.

Looking back, Roberts tells Phoenix New Times his road to wrestling stardom ran through Arizona. His time with IZW and other Arizona promotions led to a part-time gig with WWE in 2002, where he later became one of the company’s main ring announcers for more than a decade.

“IZW was such a fun experience,” Roberts says. “It's crazy to think that while I was doing WWE, I’d also be doing these smaller shows in Tempe where it's a bunch of passionate wrestlers doing their thing and I’d share with them what I’d learned and just helped everybody grow.”

This weekend, Roberts will appear before a substantially larger crowd than his early days in the Valley when AEW brings “Double or Nothing,” one of its biggest pay-per-views of the year, to Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Sunday.

New Times spoke with Roberts, who still lives in the Valley, about how working in Arizona shaped his career and how his ring announcing led to the chance to tour with Tool. Phoenix New Times: How did your working in Arizona’s wrestling scene help shape your career as a ring announcer?
Justin Roberts: I started when I was 16 doing independents in Chicago and then I moved out to Arizona when I was 18 to (attend) University of Arizona and kept working locally. I did a lot of wrestling, so sometimes there would be a pop-up show here and there.

Everything that I did, whether it was announcing or putting the shows together and seeing what gets a reaction helped shape my experience. I do some producing (behind the scenes) at AEW these days and all of that plays a part in what I do now. So everything was part of that learning experience.

What was it like working for both IZW and WWE in those days?
Back then, I really enjoyed that, going from WWE and then working there on my days off every couple of weeks. IZW was such a fun experience. It's crazy to think that while I was doing WWE, I’d also be doing these smaller shows in Tempe where it's a bunch of passionate wrestlers doing their thing and I’d share with them what I’d learned and just helped everybody grow.

IZW featured appearances by many up-and-coming wrestlers, including John Cena and Samoa Joe.
Oh yeah. We had Cena, we had a lot of guys. We tended to get a lot of guys who worked for UPW in (Southern) California. They weren't huge guys at the time, so they'd drive out to Arizona and work with us and everybody loved working. We had Frankie Kazarian; he would come out quite a bit. We had everybody. We had the who's who, if you look back, we had Samoa Joe, we had the Ballard Brothers, Horshu, who became Luther Reigns. It was so much fun.
You’ve gone from announcing for small indie wrestling shows to appearing in front of 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium with AEW. What goes through your mind during moments like that?
It's funny, I did an interview that day and I talked about, somebody said, what was the smallest crowd you worked in front of? And I think it was like 15 people at a show in Tucson. And to think about that show and you don't think anything of it when there's 15 people because I'm in college, I'm getting to ring-announce pro wrestling and you just enjoy the experience. You're not thinking about that. But then comparing it to being in London at Wembley Stadium and just a sea of thousands and thousands of people, you look around, you take it all in, you don't take it for granted. And it's really neat.
You still return to IZW every once in a while, like when you announced Hawaiian Lion's last match in 2022.
Yeah, I went there to do his retirement match and that was great. It's always fun coming back. Of course there's a lot of longtime fans that are there and they were there at The Sets and at Bash on Ash.

I always enjoyed the simplicity of promotions like IZW. And I love the idea that the IZW Nation is still there and still growing. So I love thinking big now. It was fun back then and I love every moment of it, but I love being with AEW saying, “Hey, what can we do to make this bigger and better?” So I enjoy having a larger stage to work on these days.

How did you get involved with Tool?
So (Tool guitarist) Adam Jones is a big wrestling fan, and we used to talk when he came to shows. And then he had asked me if I would want to introduce them at a (concert) and said, “Yeah, I'll look at our schedules and see when that’d work out.” It just so happened that their Phoenix show was the one day that I had at home. It was a sold-out show at US Airways Center (now PHX Arena), and I introduced them and it was really cool.

Then, when I wasn’t announcing (for WWE) anymore, they were doing a meet-and-greet in Tempe and thought I’d be an awesome host for it. I went in blind, I really had no idea what I was doing. And when he told me what the gist was, I said, "Hey, what if I use my experience from professional wrestling into putting together this event and it kind of took the audience on a psychological roller coaster. And I don't think Tool really ever had anybody bring that to them. He later told me, “Dude, that was awesome. You have to come on tour with us.” So for the next three years, I hosted these VIP events with the band and it was amazing.