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 the difference between TNA Wrestling’s Knockouts division and WWE’s Divas division.
Jarrett said, “Yes. And because context is king, big time in this scenario. Because I had mixed emotions on the old adage, ‘Okay, we’re TNA, the challenger brand.’ Of course, you punch up, you don’t ever punch down. You got to punch up. But in this case our Knockouts division, compared to the divas; I believe any wrestling fan would have said this during this time frame in 2008. The Knockouts division is far superior, they actually wrestle and they do storylines. And it’s not just bras and panties and pillows and all that kind of stuff, but we took a lot of pride in branding just what it was, the Knockouts division. And that is one of four divisions in TNA. Heavyweights, Tags, and X Division. And when we formed the Knockouts, like I’ve said many, many times on here, we all wanted them to have distinct personalities and no cookie-cutter in there. That was two ladies that were just the same. So branding and doing these spots was a little bit of a conflict for me, but that’s what we were trying to do, brand our division completely different from the WWE, and we knew they were about to come on strong.”
Jarrett also talked about TNA wrestlers taking shots at WWE and Vince McMahon on television.
“Oh, sure. And my gut tells me Vince Russo, Mick and Kurt got in a room and it’s very easy to go down that road. I’ve said a gazillion times here, hindsight’s 20/20, but now here we are 15 years later. It just doesn’t make it even worse than probably when it really aired.”
You can check out Jarrett’s complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania for transcribing the above quotes)
