My World w/ Jeff Jarrett - Impact Without a Budget [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Today we’ll discuss Part 2 of your return to TNA - and your run in working with Anthem.

How much interaction do you have with Anthem? Did you have to clear things with them?

“Bruce Prichard is being brought back for a role where he is to appear at the upcoming tapings as one of those people, and this may be as early as the 3/9 show, being taped on 3/2. Prichard is booked for that show. Right now Prichard is only coming in as a television character, and will continue his podcasts. He essentially got the gig because of how strong his podcast numbers were and Jeff Jarrett hoping that his podcast listeners would start watching TNA.”

So Jeff - the question we’ve all been wondering. Did you bring Bruce back instead of Russo because of our podcast numbers?

When it comes to talent - Matt Morgan is reportedly coming back and Konnan…why are these two guys you’re looking at to return?

“Jeff Jarrett’s idea is to do four days of taping and shoot six episodes of Impact at each taping, so they aren’t as far out of date by the end of the tapings.”

This is just cost saving correct? Does this type of taping schedule wear on talent, production, etc?

“Right now there is a full commitment through August and the key things are to get a paying television outlet in the U.S. and to get a paying television outlet in the U.K. Financially, right now, they can’t work because the only real money coming in is from India, which isn’t nearly enough to run the company. When they had India, U.K. and U.S. money they were having problems and when it was India and U.K. money they were hemorrhaging money to the point they nearly went out of business a few times. I mean, it can go forever if the new ownership is willing to pump money in forever, but at some point there are going to be economic realities and the key to business is paying television contracts more than anything else.”

How important was the TV deal to the survival of the company?

How does it feel to be back running the ship?

Where are you at mentally during this time?

Were there any talents on the roster you were excited to work with?

You begin to integrate GFW right away - with Magnus coming in holding the GFW title…in your mind were you looking to rename everything GFW?

“They also started an announcers feud with Jeremy Borash and Josh Matthews. Both were announcing the shows through the last taping for this set of shows which looks to air on 4/6 or so. It comes down to the main event on that TV show where Team JB of Alberto & Chris Adonis & Matt Morgan & Magnus (holding the GFW heavyweight title belt) beat Team Josh of Lashley & Bram & Eli Drake & Tyrus. The stipulation was that if Team Josh lost, he would lose his announcing job. Not sure if JB’s job was on the line as well. Morgan pinned Bram with an elbow off the top rope to win it.

There was a big celebration after the match and Josh talked about how bad the fans were and how his wife was probably crying her eyes out. I was told that even though that reads badly, that it was entertaining.

Jeff Jarrett’s plan was always to remove Matthews as an announcer but do a storyline rather than just pull him.”

Why the change from Josh? What was it about him that you didn’t like?

“Vince Russo claimed that Jeff Jarrett e-mailed him and asked him what his podcast numbers were. He said after doing so, he hasn’t heard back from Jarrett. I guess Bruce Prichard, whose numbers are far better, got the gig for that reason.”

No wonder Vince hates you Jeff.

It’s reported that you, Ed Nordholm & Borash go to Monterrey for Rey de Reyes show for AAA…is this to calm everything down after the legal issues?

How do you navigate the Mexican politics between AAA & Crash with them hating each other?

“Midway through the show at Arena Jose Sulaiman, Dorian Roldan and Jeff Jarrett came out to announce publicly that the two promotions were working together. The crowd booed heavily, but that was understandable. Roldan has been a heel as a television character and is always booed, and Jarrett has been coming to AAA for years as an evil foreigner who hates Mexico.”

TNA goes out of its way to pull the Hardys from appearing at ROH on pay-per-view - how heavy was the heat and the cease & desists at this time?

Were you surprised when they appeared at WrestleMania?

There’s a press release announcing an Alliance…

“Anthem’s goal is to become the alternate in wrestling to WWE and is willing to work with anyone to achieve that goal. They want their Fight Network to air every major league group aside from WWE and the companies WWE has a strong working relationship with.”

“It is unique because it appears Impact will be booking talent to warring promotions, and will use talent from warring promotions. AAA needed TNA for the World Cup, since NOAH is affiliated with The Crash and ROH with CMLL, and TNA, ROH and NOAH along with Japanese women’s groups were the key companies worked with in the previous tournaments which were some of AAA’s biggest events of the past few years.

No specifics were announced for the deal although one would expect Impact talent to start appearing on AAA major shows like TripleMania. It’s tricky, because would that mean the same people could be sent to AAA and Crash shows, or would Impact send certain talent only to AAA and others only to Crash?”

Jeff - you really were the first Switzerland guy when it came to put all this alliance together.

There’s also issues with Konnan…as he is a major part of Impact and a character…and now…

“Sources with knowledge of the situation say that they believe Konnan was put in a bad position because he’s now a key character on Impact, but that they double-crossed him in working a deal with his enemy while still working with his company.

In addition, there is the question of the legalities because those with knowledge of Factory Made contracts with AAA have them as not just holding an exclusive for the Lucha Underground contracted performers on U.S. television, but with all AAA characters.

Impact stated the alliance will include talent exchanges between the promotions and “other opportunities to collaborate with each other in their respective markets.”

How messy is all this? How much of this is a balancing act?

Another big announcement takes place…

“The company officially announced the World of Sport tapings for 5/25 and 5/26 at the Guild Hall in Preston. Impact will be handling the wrestling end of things and produce a ten episode series, and from what I understand, most likely the decision

regarding making it a full-time series will be made about three weeks in, dependent upon

ratings and reaction to the first two or three shows. As noted before, the show will air at 5 p.m. local time on Saturday, the same time slot as it did in the show’s heyday.

The working idea if everything falls into place would be for Jarrett and Anthem to be in charge of Impact in the U.S., the India television show on Sony Six, the WOS TV show on ITV, and an English language AAA television show for the U.S. market, which would be tricky because most of the top AAA guys couldn’t even appear on the show due to the Lucha Underground deal. The AAA show is the only deal that hasn’t been announced yet.”

Jeff - you go from not doing much of anything at the end of 2016 to almost becoming Vince McMahon of the independent world. How did you accomplish all this?

“Obviously the issues with the Hardys and Anthem are far from settled. The Hardys cut a video, completely in their broken character, holding the TNA tag team title belts (so they cut this before giving them back to Shane Helms before the last tapings which means they held off posting the video for weeks) and throwing them in the lake of reincarnation and then pulled out the ROH belts with the idea that they are bigger than the brand and that the TNA belts are meaningless now.”

The personal heat is really starting to bleed into TV heat is it not?

“Jeff Jarrett went to Mexico for the TripleMania press conference on 4/18. Jarrett went to Mexico this week for the TripleMania press conference, and he, Karen Jarrett and EC 3 are going to also be going to the U.K. to promote the launch of Impact at Spike U.K., which debuts on 4/22. “

Jeff - how big and heavy was the stress of doing all this?

“It was announced that AAA talent would be appearing on the 7/2 Slammiversary PPV in Orlando and that Impact talent, including Bobby Lashley, Moose, Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards would be appearing at TripleMania on 8/26 in Mexico City at Arena Ciudad.

What’s even more interesting as they announced a combination live show tour in the fall, stating they would work together in North America (this is interesting because Lucha Underground had blocked any AAA talent working for any North American television promotion but things are changing regarding Lucha Underground with no future dates announced and them no longer being as hardcore about their contracted wrestlers only working for them on television in the U.S. market). They also talked about doing joint shows in Japan and Colombia.”

How were you looking to navigate the legalities of Lucha Underground?

“There was a big backstage argument at the tapings on 4/23. It started with Karen Jarrett and Bob Ryder, and then escalated to Jeff Jarrett and Bob Ryder. The first argument was over Ryder forgetting to book a hotel room. Jeff and Ryder’s argument was apparently very heated and it appeared at the time that Jarrett was going to fire him. Jeff told him to leave the tapings, which he did in the middle of the show. But after the tapings were over, both were back at the office in Nashville working like nothing had happened.”

Jeff - how did this ever happen?

What was your relationship like with Bob Ryder before, at the time, and after?

From the newsletters:

“The company released agents Al Snow, Pat Kenney and Shane Helms this past week which is clearly budget-cutting. Kenney, 49, has been with the company since 2003. Snow, 53, started at the end of 2008. Helms, 42, started in 2015. They are going with Sonjay Dutt and Abyss as the agents since they can double as wrestlers. Dutt is tight with Jeff Jarrett and is in charge of finding the top unsigned talent and rebuilding the X division among other things.”

This is something you needed to do from a cost perspective - but bringing in your own people was very important was it not?

Why Sonjay & Abyss? Considering the roles they would develop into later on - in WWE and now Sonjay in AEW and you being on screen with him - why was he always someone to be a to go person?

“The fact they’ve had to start letting people go when they already have a skeleton crew to begin with, is not a good sign for right now and for Anthem’s ability to grow the company. As far as the choices went, Jarrett is going to want his people in, and Helms is also closely aligned with the Hardys, who aren’t there anymore.”

Was moving on from Shane Helms having anything to do with the Hardys?

You also had Bruce working as an agent as well is that correct? Was it just too many hands for not enough reasons?

“There is a ton of frustration with the reality that as long as they are on Pop TV, their numbers are pretty limited in what they can draw, but with the numbers they are getting and it being pro wrestling with its lack of appeal to advertisers, these numbers make it hard to get a bigger outlet. Citing what you used to do with Spike got them Pop, but in the TV world, Spike is so many years back now that it’s ancient history.”

How frustrating was the contract with Pop?

Were you actively looking for TV deals as soon as you get into the company?

Was it a shock to see what they were getting from Pop considering what your Spike deal was previously?

Was it ancient history? Could you not rely on those past numbers?

How tough is the structure of the company to deal with - and how frustrating and how much stress were you under at this point?

Did it feel like you could dig out of the mess?

We will continue with part 3 of your time in TNA in 2017 - and focus on Slammiversary later on this year!

Remember you can watch all the Hardy Deletion stuff - the revamp - even our buddy Bruce being the man in charge…

Next week - More TNA! We will cover Destination X 2008! The issues with the Motor City Machine Guns continue, a six man tag match between The Unlikely Alliance of Christian Cage, Kevin Nash & Samoa Joe against the Angle Alliance of Kurt, AJ Styles & Tomko, Elevation X between Rhino & James Storm, Robert Roode & Booker T in a strap match, and a Fish Market Street Fight between Shark Boy & Curry Man…yes that’s right - and Team 3D!