Jeff Jarrett - ain't he great?

[LEGIT]

I don't watch AEW but I really like Jarrett.

On the contrary to others, my favourite Jarrett runs were WCW and TNA. I liked his reinvention after cutting his hair and wearing the shorts and shades in the late 90s.

I know throughout TNA a lot of people were sick of him, similar to how people complained of Triple H at the time. But he was involved in great storyline driven TV, with great promos and well built up main events with lots of drama, run ins, action etc. He's a particularly good heel too, one of the best.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by LEGIT

[Jazzy G]

He is great. When I was doing the backyard wrestling thing as a younger person I initially was a Jeff Jarrett "image" before shifting gears and becoming an Anderson. He was always a solid technician and storyteller. I think he was a little overdone when Russo decided to try and build the company around him, but he was still entertaining enough. I totally get the Triple H comparisons in TNA, but given how deeply involved with the company he was at times it made sense as well. I've bit seen him in AEW yet, but it sounds like he's doing really well. He's a great wrestler with a great wrestling mind, and if they used him in a creative role as well as on screen I'm sure he could benefit them even more. 

There are some great singles matches he could have there as well: Danielson, Moxley, Eddie Kingston. Imagine if he'd been around when Hangman Page won the title. He'd have been a great choice to help get him over better.

I'd love to see him have a match with Dustin, heck put him with Brock Anderson and Brian Pillman Junior in Arn's not Horsemen team. Draft in Joe Hennig as well. 

Having said that, I wonder whether he's a little reluctant to pass his wisdom onto the younger generation because of how some of them allegedly ignored Regal's advice at times. He's the kind of elder statesman Jericho should be but isn't because he believes his own hype too much whereas Jarrett has always come across as a lot more humble. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by jazzygeofferz

[SuperBacon]

Has Jarett ever feuded/interacted with Punk? (I'm too lazy to look it up)

I reckon from a promo/match point of view, that would/would've been excellent.

I love Jarrett and the promo he cuts after Owen Hart died/before his match will be burned in my memory forever. He looks so heartbroken.

[westlondonmist]

Strangely I've been a fan for a while, he was the perfect guy for Chyna to win the IC title off. Chyna was over obviously but he came across as such a dick you needed her to win. In WCW I thought he was a great heel, and he did some good stuff against DDP and Booker T. It's a shame in that WCW run he didn't get to feud with Hart or Benoit (they did have a short match at Mayhem 99) as I think that both would have been great feuds. 

In TNA again a really good heel, a solid enough face but not overwhelming. He had some really good matches though which I think lots of people forget about as they generally remember X division stuff or Styles, Joe and Angle being a big part of the main event scene. 

He can still hold up well enough I imagine as his moveset was never over the top, often fairly basic and based around psychology rather than wowing an audience. It means lots of his matches weren't necessarily must see but if you watched the feud you would be invested. 

[TildeGuy~!]

Double J MMA all the way

[air_raid]

Ahh, Double J. One of the most simultaneously beloved yet maligned guys of the last 30 years. I loved him for the most, hated him for a time, always enjoyed his work and struggle badly to define his career because he’s had certain successes he probably shouldn’t have yet also doesn’t always get the credit he undoubtedly should. He’s a kind of inverse Chris Jericho to me, nowhere near as lauded but arguably with far more influence on the evolution of the business without people admitting it because he probably wasn’t their favourite wrestler.

His first WWF run is frequently remembered as a great wrestler with daft stripper tights and a cheesy gimmick. Which is partly true, but he was an absolutely vital consistent heel during a spell where many of the heels either yet you down with dull, plodding matches (Yokozuna, Crush, Borga), were too cool to stay babyface and ended up groomed for heroics (Kev, HBK) or were just bland characters nobody cares about (Million Dollar Corporation). Double J and future tag partner Owen Hart were the absolute backbone of many a WWF show for nearly two years. At the time the character I struggled with slightly and after being raised on Rick Rude, Mr Perfect and early Shawn, at first I thought Jarrett was too silly a character to be a serious contender for Intercontinental champ and definitely shouldn’t have been booked as an equal to The Bad Guy, but eventually after so many Roadie run ins and self-congratulatory introductions I realized how infuriating he’d become, in a good way. It’s easy to look back and think “Sure, you had good matches with Shawn, Bret and Kid. Who couldn’t?” But the art was how he’d made you desperate to see him get what he deserved from a relative nobody like Doink or Dumpster. And he made you beg to see him lose the belt to anyone from Razor to Bulldog to Savio to Adam Bomb. He excelled as the smug twat who needed a slap, even if he wasn’t quite Mr Perfect. As for good matches, that Shawn match from In Your House in Nashville is rightly remembered as GREAT (ha ha ha) and that evenings whole presentation was his first peak. The Roadie divorce, while maybe (and in Jeff’s mind certainly) rushed would have been interesting to see play out but that was basically the end of the run between two delays receiving a new contract offer (the second of which in 96 of course never came) and a nasty injury. A shame, because there was plenty left for him. He’d have been a good foil for early babyface Henry Godwinn similar to what Hunter did with more of a flavour of “You give the Southern states a bad name.” I’d have loved him in Camp Cornette, and him and Owen against the Smoking Gunns would have been great fun (as long as it didn’t rob us of Owen & Smithers later). I’d have loved to see him weasel around Sid and eventually get powerbombed, and he’d have been useful as a spare body when they were running out of opponents for Shawn as WWF champ. But it wasn’t to be.

So, he hopped to WCW for a year. The initial reaction to his presentation was tepid to say the least, with a whole “bidding war” suggested around whether he’d choose the nWo, the Horsemen or neither. They acted as if Jeff was a major player (“free agent”) coming in, in spite of the ignominy of his exit(s) from the WWF, at the absolute worst possible time. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had made the jump while still perceived as massive superstars, and for all of Jeff’s strengths, he wasn’t Hall or Nash. When they eventually positioned Jeff not in his natural heel position but as a babyface aligned with Flair et al, it coincided with Arn being on the shelf with the injury that retired him. With five guys being referred to as the Four Horsemen (including Benoit and Mongo) the inference was that Jarrett was taking Arns spot, and that was even more underwhelming to the long term rasslin fans, because he wasn’t Arn Anderson. The WWE DVDs released during the Ruthless Pettiness era routinely likened Jeff to Paul Roma in the annals of “bad Horsemen” and while that may be unfair, he was not widely accepted. Routinely, Jarrett was the only Horsemen to get boos, to the point on any given Nitro if Benoit and Mongo were wrestling the Dungeon of Doom or nWo B team, Jarrett would wrestle like a heel against some midcard babyface. Which probably suited him ; there are at least three matches he had against Dean Malenko in 97 which were both entertaining and heated, which were the perfect collision of character vs wrestler where the two complemented each others strengths admirably. (In fairness WCW were pretty loose with their booking of the other Horsemen too, usually heroes but baddies if the office wanted them to fight Kevin Greene or Roddy Piper). Adding Debra to the package was brilliant, the “that’s another man’s wife” stuff was very well done without Attitude levels of crassness and Jeff thrived as a true bad guy once he left the Horseys behind ; getting himself pinned rather than face Mongo’s wrath at Road Wild was brilliant fun, on top of betraying Malenko, which lead to his last dance at Fall Brawl. Then he realized he’d been booked down a bit of a hole as a heel not part of the nWo, giving him no leverage for better pay upon renewal, so his dad got him back talking to Vince.

There might have been legs in his WWF return initially, with his vitriol towards the office, new look and music. He might have been OK played as “underused highly talented wrestler, back to prove himself” in the extremely worked-shooty environment of 97 WWF. However once the bell rang, he was largely the same bloke that had left. At the time the product had changed so much and so many guys were at the forefront, the feeling was “Did we even miss Double J?” What really didn’t help was first night back being so anti-office and actually throwing out Stone Cold Steve Austin’s name, when he wasn’t Steve Austin, and in an interview that aired on Superstars talking up himself as on a par with Bret and Shawn where in the minds of viewers definitely he wasn’t Bret or Shawn. To compound all that, at his first PPV back his DQ win over Taker was down to Kane and zero to do with anything he did. If you have a guy coming in talking like he’s a main event player, then a statement win over The Undertaker first night back sounds good on paper - but not like that. May as well have been Roadie taking the knee out for a count-out, so after one match, Jeff was perceived as being precisely where on the totem pole he had been when he left. It’s possible there might have been a great spot for him as perennial heel Intercontinental champ straight away with that character if The Rock wasn’t starting to take off and Austin had agreed to work with Jarrett, but Rock was, and Austin didn’t.

What followed with the terrible NWA stuff is best dwelled on only by saying that going from talking about the World title to DQ losses on TV to Blackjack Bradshaw in a couple of months is probably the most shocking reversal of fortune that side of… well, Bradshaw going from Acolyte to winning the World title in a couple of months. Reverting to the Double J character made a laughing stock of Jarrett both on screen and as a man in my eyes after how much he’d denigrated the character in the past. “Why don’t you just be Cactus Jack” it wasn’t. Adding TAFKA Col Robert Parker to the package, I won’t lie, at the time I thought sounded a great idea but in practice everything they did fucking around with Steve Blackman, guitars and something called Sawyer Brown, was the worst kind of lifeless filler, and adding the beyond stale Godwinns to the team as Southern Justice was the pits - these guys were last seen struggling to beat the Quebecers, I’m not buying them as anyone’s hired goons. Regardless salvation came, as it often did in the 90s, in the shape of Sean Waltman, with Jarrett vs X-Pac a decent feud with a proper climax, in a good match in front of an enthusiastic MSG. It can’t be understated how much the next (and indeed final) repackage of Jarrett by the WWF did for him. As soon as he cut his hair, started wearing the shorts, took Southern Justice’s music for his own and dropped “Double J,” a weight disappeared from his shoulders. When he got Debra back, the package was complete. He was booked in the right place on the card, he wrestled like he was having fun. When he got to tag with Owen the comic timing of both was a joy to behold, and through tragedy, fate gave Jeff chance to equal Chico’s mark of 4 runs with the ICT. He was once again a great smug chickenshit for the midcard babyfaces doing mini feuds with Ken Shamrock and Test on TV then breaking the record doing a hot potato with Edge and extending it to 6 with another hot potato with D’Lo. My favourite wally Y2J may also have made it to 6 (and ultimately 8 ) reigns during his hundred years on/off runs in the WWF/WWE, but our Jeff did it first, and he won them all in 95 or 99.

As ever, it’s usually either creative or cash that prompts a wrestler to move on and in October 99 it was both that persuaded Jarrett to follow Vinny Ru and Oklahoma to WCW. Mainly on the promise of World title reigns his alleged ego coveted and believed he deserved. They totally false started on him, timing being what it was, Jeff doing a clean job to Benoit at Mayhem in the semis because they wanted an all Canadian final in Canada with Bret winning. Even after the brief nWo “silver” formed, at first Jarretts focus was the US rather than World title (with Bret as top dog) then after Bret went down, he found himself unable even with the help from his stablemates or the umm Harris twins (WTF) to wrest the belt from the man the latest braintrust envisaged carrying WCW into the new century… Sid. After the reboot Jeff eventually got his turn with the belt, but as head of the big dominant heel faction that wins all the belts, has “authority figure” support, even persuades babyface women to leave their men - Kimberly betraying DDP, just as Liz left Macho Man for Hollywood Hogan on two separate occasions - it all felt rather forced. Four title wins in about six weeks did utterly nothing for him. Yes, a heel is supposed to cheat and have an air of injustice around him having the title, but in the blind panic to create unpredictable TV, the ease at which Jarrett was beaten for the belt by Page, by Flair or by Nash exposed him as unworthy. Heading the heel stable while holding the belt like Hollywood Hogan before him just didn’t work for Jarrett since they’d already reminded us so recently he was a “US title” level guy, and essentially he wasn’t Hollywood Hogan in terms of stature, gravitas or box office. He played his part in putting Booker T over, and when they moved the gold onto Scott Steiner I very much felt like there was believability there which they simply couldn’t muster for ole Slapnuts. He recovered and had his moments in the Magnificent Seven, but it wasn’t quite what he imagined.

What was what he imagined, quite literally, was TNA. He was 100% perfect, initially, as both figurehead champion for the young company and as a foil for flash youngster AJ Styles. They traded the title, did a double turn that played to neither of their strengths at the time and so did another double turn, and during this period there evolved a holding pattern where whenever the landscape changed, be it new show, change of channel etc, it was “get the belt back on Jarrett.” He was a safe pair of hands. They choked a lightning-in-a-bottle situation with Monty Brown, who later nonsensically turned and became aligned with Jeff, and gradually “My World” seemed to become more than the title of his theme. When he lost the belt to AJ at Hard Justice 2005 it seemed like they might go all the way with AJ this time but it wasn’t to be, and sure enough it was soon back on Jarrett via some rapid fire changes and Raven, just in time for Impact getting a new time slot (just as the tag belts ended up back on AMW). Slowly “Jarrett on top” started to become interminable. I’ll never forget the smarky chants of “Drop the title” at him in the Doncaster Dome, which ever the pro, he played up to. As if the brief turns with the belt for Styles, Truth, Raven and Rhino merely being brief interludes in a seemingly endless reign for “Triple J” as some circles dubbed him, wasn’t enough to sour fans on him, (politicking himself into being champ seemingly forever like Triple H but for again superstar aura and believable villainy he wasn’t Triple H) - this was around the time Jeff was taking the belt to as many countries as he could and defending it overseas, to look more like an old-school touring World Champion. Combined with the NWA tag still hanging around (plus THAT belt), in some circles it invited unfavourable comparisons to and suggestions that Jarrett viewed himself like Ric Flair - he wasn’t Ric Flair. Thankfully once he did the honours for Christian and they had the likes of Sting and Angle coming in, Jeff stepped back from the World title scene and remarkably stayed away, and in the intervening years we got a wealth of entertainment from his buffoon heel side including the wonderful Double J Double M A (ha ha ha) Open Challenge, and when booked as a babyface every now and again we saw some of the real Jeff - deep down he’s actually a likeable and relatable guy. Who knew? Eventually of course all things must pass and he parted ways with Dixie.

So, since? OK, Global Force was a confusing mess even though I did enjoy Jeff’s brief transformation into a Cash My Gold entrepreneur. He’s been all around the world hamming it up from AAA to a brief WWE return to New Japan (where he had a brief comedic whirl with the Bullet Club, the only guy to be in that group as well as the nWo and the Horsemen) without as much fanfare as, I don’t know, Chris Jericho who seemed to be single handedly credited with the gate for the Wrestle Kingdom he did with Omega. But through Flairs “last match” through the plaudits he’s been getting for his work in AEW, he’s always entertained us. He’s been beset multiple times with situations or responsibilities that have compared him unfavourably to others, but if you view him for who he’s been - an enjoyable wrestler excelling as the annoying yet never truly despicable heel, a longevity few can match with a real skill for reinventing himself, positioned best near the top of the midcard who occasionally ended up at the top which wasn’t truly where he belonged - he’s had a fantastic career, ending up content with his lot with seemingly none of the believing his own hype that Jericho has, or any of the bitterness so many of his peers harbour.

Edited February 26, 2023 by air_raid

[wandshogun09]

1 hour ago, TildeGuy~! said:

Double J MMA all the way

The man the Gracies avoided. J-E-Double F. I heard the Japanese and Brazilians stole all their shit from Tennessee Jiu-Jitsu. 

[Loki]

And he found time to bring up Kurt Angle’s kids whilst Kurt was all perced out.

[Butch2000]

Are people only just realising now that Jeff Jarrett is great value? Christ.

 

look at his punches. Ace punches. Great wrestlers have great punches and he’s got great punches. I think it was Carbon who said earlier on, quite correctly; that he’s a fucking super duper quality fiery babyface as well when needs be. With great fucking punches. He’s also a lovely bloke.

[ScottishSiren]

I am another one who loves Jeff Jarrett.

What a worker. 

I remember 12 years ago when TNA was touring and they were also doing Gut Check. They managed to work an angle with Jarrett and the now deceased Scottish wrestler Lionheart where Jeff cracked Lionheart with a guitar at the local wrestling school then left. 

This built towards the match at the Glasgow leg of the TNA UK tour. What a reaction Jeff got. He got super minster heel heat. I recall the match itself Jeff not having to do much but boy he worked the crowd something to make them boo him and cheer for the local guy. 

 

[Loki]

Great Jeff Jarrett moment from the end of the Battle Royale this week.  The Acclaimed run in for a double team move on Lethal and Jarrett.  Max Caster mistimes his bit so Jarrett just bumps anyway in sync with Lethal so the spot looks cool.  Max hadn't even thrown the punch!