Jeff Jarrett discussed his return to TNA Wrestling in 2017 on a recent episode of My World. Dixie Carter’s involvement in 2017 and joining TNA during Billy Corgan’s problems with the company were also discussed. Here are the highlights:
Returning to TNA during the Billy Corgan drama:
“Billy had come to live events. I mean, I remember one in Oak City that Billy came and I think he was in the middle of the tour, but he came and sat beside JB at ringside. I mean, I knew Billy as a great business mind, lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins and a good friend of Jeremy Borash. I mean that was, you know, lack of a better wordsmith, that was the context. In 2016 when all that unfortunate drama — and I know there was dollars attached to that so I hate to call something with a lot of dollars attached just drama — but all that stuff that was going on that was obviously one of the first real due diligence questions that me and my legal guys like, ‘Where are we at with everything? Where are you guys at with it? Basically, what is Jeff stepping into if he accepts this role.’ That was really what I wanted my attorneys to do is they really lift the hood up on this. What am I getting myself into again. Once I kind of told my crew and the folks in Hollywood had that conversation, they were like ‘Can you just kind of give us another 60, 90, 120 days’ and I’m like ‘I like the time’s right. I think there’s a real opportunity and we’re going to get into this with Triple A, there’s just a lot of moving parts that I thought if we could get it under — I don’t want to say one umbrella, but if we all could have this collaborative working relationship I think there’s money to be made.’ I knew the Spike deal of $22 [million], $24 million a year revenue was gone. It wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
“So, with that being said it was going to take a collaborative effort of multiple promotions working together. Because at the end of the day — this is obviously prior to AEW — Conrad, you know that talent needs they need work. They need to get out and learn their craft and we got to have places to develop talent, we just gotta churn the wrestling business. Well, if TNA’s just doing TV tapings, no house shows, and Triple A wants to get into this market, and maybe NOAH wants to have a little bit better USA presence and there’s some international stuff going on in the UK? Well, you know if we have kind of a quasi-working agreements and we have thirty, forty pieces of talent that are getting as much work as they want there’s something there. So that was something that Hermie didn’t want to hear. Karen damn sure didn’t want to hear. LA folks kind of understood, but also said ‘hey man the big money is in the TV deal and we’re under an agreement with FOX Sports we all know that the UFC has a pivotal role in budgets with those guys and scheduling and all that, but let’s just see how it plays out.’ Well, I wanted to move forward jumping off Anthem had just acquired it signed all the documents. Billy was essentially whatever that game set match was, and Dixie was, in their words not mine, Dixie’s in the box there are no she doesn’t have decision making power. I said, ‘That’s all that matters.’ I can more than coexist with Dixie Carter, but if she has decision making powers for a wrestling entity I’ve been down that road I’m not interested. So, once all all the I thought hurdles were cleared I was ready to move forward because I just thought there was going to be a real opportunity to integrate all the promotions and Global Force could be launched on a network but grandiose plans didn’t work out did they?”
Dixie Carter’s TNA role in 2017:
“I mean, you talk about something that I totally forgot about because after the initial conversation, and I had that straight up with Ed. I personally, I can coexist, whatever you got to do. You guys saved Anthem and again, I didn’t then and I didn’t now completely understand the Corgan piece. But regardless, it’s yours now and you did what you had to do so you have obviously existing relationships with Aroluxe, with Dixie, with Corgan that’s yours. But, moving forward, as far as decision makers in the room that have decision-making powers that’s very important to me. Because, the branding here of GFW and the content and what we’re headed for and the FOX Sports holding deals one thing, but just the day to day operations I don’t want to fight city hall anymore. I did that for a lot of years and there’s nothing good that comes from that and they assured me we are going to handle that you know in a release. I can remember saying that I’m like well how’s that work and he goes ‘Financially that was done October’ or whatever it was when they funded that last deal they took over then it was theirs they were the ones writing the checks and it was theirs so there wasn’t really an equation of Dixie in it.”
You can listen to the complete podcast below:
(h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription)
