WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett, who is also All Elite Wrestling’s Director of Business Development, took to an episode of his “My World with Jeff Jarrett” podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including how the Main Event Mafia started in TNA Wrestling.
Jarrett said, “Internally, it was [excitement within the booking team]. There is a low echo there. We mean, it just worked because as things begin to progress and you kind of look at and even, as we get into it, I don’t want to jump far ahead, but we are already kind of solved. Okay. ‘Is Kurt the leader or whoa, it stinks.’ Kind of got it. Longevity or tenure on him. Well, Booker could step in there. He’s been around a while. It was like such a unique group. That was forming. Organically. I hate to say that, but that’s real. When we hired all five of them, we didn’t have this master plan at all. But when you take a step back and look at where we felt we needed to go, that, ‘Hey, man, there’s a little bit of a feeling out there that we’re too top-heavy on the non-originals.’ And then you kind of look at the other side of the fence and go, AJ’s put his time in here and Joe’s put his time in here and Eric Young and Motor City Machine Guns and Bobby Roode and just kind of this whole group that you know what, I think we’re going to kind of find out in a storyline way that, okay, who’s going to rise to the top? It just kind of fit organically. Now, me as a businessman and my own on-screen character, was morphing into the founder. We didn’t really want to call me the matchmaker or certainly not the booker or any of that. The founder, but just the story worked. And then you throw Mick Foley in the middle of all this because he is of the era of the legends, but he’s a huge supporter. It all just fits in a real way. I hate to use that term but in an authentic way.”
Jarrett also talked about whether he had any conversation with Mike Goldberg about coming to TNA while he was still working with the UFC.
“No, I mean, it was all done through Spike, all the UFC kind of collaboration. And I think the UFC is obviously in a completely different place now. Well, even double completely saw that. I love the comment that Dana [White] made. Vince is completely different, however. And I’m thinking, yeah. Dana, that lion of the jungle is on your side. Now, if you’re on the other side, he is carnivorous, to say the least. But UFC what, 2008., they’re really six, seven years old into their growth. No, they’re older than that. When did that happen [going on Spike]? Whatever the reality show happened there. So there are three years. Wow. Anyway, they were in a different place, but they were always fantastic. Kevin and Kevin K from time to time, but they were like, yeah, we’re going to get them to help us here. And they did. Really good partners.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
