Jeff Jarrett on “The Story Of TNA Is The Story Of A Thousand What-Ifs”

Tuesday’s season seven premiere of the Dark Side of the Ring docuseries on VICE TV featured the first two of a three-part episode focusing on Jeff Jarrett and TNA Wrestling.

One of the topics discussed included Jarrett’s thoughts about the story of TNA being a “story of a thousand what-ifs” over 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.”

Jarrett also gave his thoughts about how TNA was created out of desperation after Vince McMahon had purchased WCW in 2001 and he knew he had nowhere else to work for his wrestling career.

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 …

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.”

Among those interviewed for the episode was former TNA President Scott D’Amore who gave his thoughts about Jarrett’s decision to form TNA.

“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 gave his thoughts about the process that led to his meeting with Bob Carter and Panda Energy after TNA’s funding from HealthSouth was pulled.

“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.

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.”

Jarrett also gave his thoughts about his father Jerry Jarrett’s decision to leave TNA in late 2005 due to several issues including the Carters and Vince Russo

“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.“

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com