WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett, who is also All Elite Wrestling’s Director of Business Development, appeared on an episode of his “My World with Jeff Jarrett” podcast. In it, he discussed various topics, including TNA Impact airing on FOX Sports Net.
Jarrett said, “Let’s be clear here. We were not getting paid, we were paying to be on TV. Why do you do that? Well, to build the brand. But Conrad, when I dove into this — and that’s why I kind of screamed out ’20 years ago.’ What has happened in the last 20 years? It’s just that everything happens faster today. But in 2005, our show — and I can remember sitting in the LA offices of Fox Sports and how they were still less than 10 years old. And FS 1was called Speed. I mean Speed became FS2 — just kind of the growth of it all. It was just not anywhere close to what people would think about Fox Sports today. Because Fox Sports was a big group of regional networks. And when we came home, we landed on Friday at three Eastern as our first one because everybody — and I say everybody, all the regional networks agreed to give us clearance. And that’s — you know, Friday nights are not easy. Friday afternoons, my God. And like I said, no Twitter, no Instagram, no Facebook. The online journalism was obviously building, but nothing like all of it is today. And the messaging just to get the word out, ‘Hey, we’re moving from three Eastern to four Eastern,’ it just — in our limited shoestring budget. Conrad, to me, the numbers that, when I look at it today, impressive may be too strong a word. But I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to give the wrestling fan all the credit.’ And they deserve all the credit because they will search out content and watch it. The wrestling fan is like none other… It’s kind of mind-boggling how they searched us out, and the numbers grew.”
On issues with the Full Metal Mayhem match between Jeff Hardy and Abyss:
“I didn’t see any of the post-match meltdown. Because me and Kevin had our match coming up, and I was dialed into that. And Dusty was running the show anyway backstage. I found out later tonight. And I think there was a lot of discussion of, ‘Hey, man, it wasn’t as bad as you thought.’ And Abyss, to his credit man, he takes so much pride in telling stories in his match. And Jeff is a perfect babyface opponent for Monster Abyss. And look, you know, Meltzer kind of took a shot at how high that was. But Hardy to get up on top of that. I mean they did some crazy-ass s**t and layered it up. And so they were both frustrated, and Jeff was frustrated that he did the wrong thing, and Abyss and all that. But I found out after the fact. And look, go back and watch it and yes, it’s not picture perfect. But it’s not near as big as this sounds like in Meltzer’s reporting.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
