Jeff Jarrett: ‘The story of TNA is the story of a thousand what-ifs’
Jeff Jarrett says “the story of TNA is the story of a thousand what-ifs.”
The first two episodes of Dark Side of the Ring’s seventh season aired Tuesday on Vice TV. Both focused on the story of Jarrett and TNA Wrestling, with the third part set to air next week.
In the opening episode, Jarrett reflects on the different events that led to the promotion becoming what it is today.
“The TNA story. I have a completely different set of lenses on it today than I did back in 2002. At the end of the day, when I kind of look back on my career, there’s no way to succeed in life if you don’t have not one failure, but many. The story of TNA is the story of a thousand what-ifs.”
The episode looks at several of those what-ifs, including what if Vince McMahon had not purchased WCW? What if TNA’s funding from HealthSouth had not collapsed, leading to Dixie Carter and Panda Energy entering the story? And what if Jarrett and his father Jerry Jarrett had remained aligned?
Jarrett spoke about how TNA was created out of desperation after McMahon purchased WCW and Jarrett knew he had nowhere else to work.
“I was given one of the greatest gifts and that is the gift of desperation. And that gift of desperation has changed my life.”
Jarrett later said:
“Coming back home from that final Nitro, I knew that I didn’t know what was next, but I did have the blessing or the curse to understand that if Vince buys the number two, that wouldn’t be good for him or the industry.”
Scott D’Amore also spoke about Jarrett’s decision to form TNA, saying:
“If Vince McMahon doesn’t fire Jeff Jarrett on that last Nitro, there’s no reason for Jeff to sit there and go, ‘Oh there’s no place for me to work. I better create one.’”
Jarrett also spoke about when TNA’s funding from HealthSouth was pulled and how this led to him meeting with Bob Carter and Panda Energy.
Jarrett said:
“We are almost there. And then I got the call from Health South. Hey Jeff, the funding is being pulled. Okay, so it’s over.“
In 2003, TNA backer HealthSouth was facing fraud charges from the SEC after it was alleged the company had been inflating its profits for years.
Jarrett addressed TNA losing its funding, saying:
“I got into the office at 9:00 9:30 in the morning after Wednesday night’s show and I’ll never forget it on speaker phone and Health South said, ‘Jeff, Richard’s got bigger issues to worry about and so we’re going to quit the funding.’ There was an eerie, eerie silence. What about the line of credit? It’s pulled. Are you going to fund last night’s show? No. Okay.”
Also during the episode, Jarrett spoke about his father Jerry Jarrett’s decision to leave TNA Wrestling in late 2005.
Jarrett said:
“My dad came to a point in his life that me and him were not going to be seeing eye to eye on anything by any stretch of the imagination.“
“After 60 years of wrestling, no one was going to tell my father how to run a wrestling company. He felt his legacy was being tarnished. He was sour on the Carters. He was sour on me. He was sour on Russo. He was sour on so many things. And he became bitter.“
Jarrett also spoke about how he and his father did not speak for several years after Jerry left the company.
The first episode of the three-part Dark Side of the Ring series on Jeff Jarrett and TNA Wrestling was posted online Wednesday morning. The full episode is available below.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.