Lee Sanders and Titus Machiavelli of The RCWR Show interviewed Jeff Jarrett, who was promoting this weekend’s New Japan Pro Wrestling Wrestle Kingdom 9 event from the Tokyo Dome. You can check out the full interview above, below are some highlights.
Titus: What do you think that’s going to set Global Force Wrestling apart from everything else that’s out there? It seems that we have a lot of new wrestling companies coming out with Lucha Xtreme and New Japan is talking about a show in the United States. What is it that’s going to set Global Force apart from everything else that’s going to be out there?
Well, I go back to my short answer. Stay tuned and those facts will be revealed but on the other side of that is just the fact that we have a philosophy that is basically 180 degrees different than the current US promotions in that in the years past, promotions didn’t recognize other promotions and quite frankly, if they did, they talked in a negative connotation about it. We believe just the opposite. We want other promotions to try, we’re going to recognize then. The fact that our first event is New Japan Pro Wrestling, us being the executive producers on the pay-per-view market, is truth to that and we’re going to continue to do that because I believe that the world is so connected now. Before we came on the air, we were talking about you’re in DC and I mean, you’re in Denver, and we got somebody in DC, Lee is, and you know, and the technology connects, you know, it connects everybody. More related specifically to professional wrestling, it connects different fan bases and I want to be a part of that.
Titus: That’s a very real look at professional wrestling. I love that answer, thank you Jeff. I’m going to ask you one lat question and I’m going to turn it over to Lee. As someone who’s been in the wrestling industry for a few years, and I’ve worked, and I continue to work in independent wrestling promotions, I even tried out for the TNA gut-check challenge myself where I only got to the top three of my bracket. I know that a lot of folks that listen to our show are up and coming professional wrestlers. What is it that you would say to them that would help them get their big break? What should they be focused on, two or three things that they should take seriously from Jeff Jarrett, who has had such a success as a promoter and as a wrestler and an entrepreneur?
You know, when I broke into the business It was rough but the fact that I got to wrestle six and sometimes seven nights a week for the first three, four, five six seven years I was in this business, was a tremendous help in that I got to learn my trade, got to learn my craft. If you tell a basketball player how do you want to get to the next level? All of them will tell you. You got to take a thousand shots a day. You got to practice and practice and practice and practice. Well, that isn’t completely applicable to professional wrestling, but what I tell everybody is do as much possible work as you can. Don’t worry about the money. The money will come later. And I know that’s easy to say, you know, for me who’s been in business so long but still today you got to be trained right, you got to go to a right school, you got to get to right fundamentals about you, and then you got to get in there and do it. And somebody who doesn’t really have a passion for this business, they’ll find out real quick. I’m not into this, I’m going to move on to another profession. But if you really love it, you’ll get up there and get as much work, drive as far as you can drive to get as much work as you possibly can and then really study it. Be who you are, find an extension of your personality, something that’s real down in your gut and expend on that.
Lee: Good questions there, Titus. Hey, Jeff, it’s Lee here again. I want to ask you some TNA questions but we’ll definitely go back and forth with the Global Force Wrestling talk. You know, something that’s been a hot topic among hardcore TNA fans over the years has been you and your father getting inducted in the TNA Hall of Fame. I mean, ever since it came to fruition back in 2012, fans have been waiting patiently to hear you and your father’s names announced. Now with all due respect to Sting, Kurt Angle, and Team 3D, many including ourselves have noted that there wouldn’t be a TNA without you and your father and guys like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, and Bobby Roode, just to name a few. In the past, your wife Karen has taken to Twitter and she’s actually retweeted anyone who advocated for you being in the TNA Hall of Fame. I’ve got a two-part question for you. One, in your eyes, will the TNA Hall of Fame’s legitimacy always be questionable if you and your father aren’t inducted and number two, how much would it mean to you to be acknowledged by TNA and placed in their Hall of Fame? I mean, after all, you and your father founded the company.
Well, the short answer is like I said, about this time last year, I closed the chapter on this book of TNA wrestling. I moved on very excited, have zero regrets about my time there, very grateful and blessed and thankful for my 12 years there. But it was time for me and my family to move on. And so you know, the powers that be at TNA, they choose who they want to choose and more power to them and if that’s their decision and if they believe that’s truly what’s best for TNA business and TNA entertainment, God bless ’em. I moved on and let that sleeping dog lie.
