68. JEFF JARRETT
Real Name – Jeff Jarrett
Hometown – Nashville, Tennessee
Born – April 14, 1967
Debuted – 15th October 1993
Titles Held – CWA International Tag Team 2x (1 with Pat Tanaka, 1 with Paul Diamond); AWA Southern Tag Team 4x (3 with Billy Travis, 1 with Pat Tanaka); NWA Mid-America 5x; WCWA World Light Heavyweight 2x; CWA Heavyweight; WCWA Tag Team 3x (1 with Kerry Von Erich, 1 with Mil Mascaras, 1 with Matt Borne); USWA World Tag Team 14x (2 with Matt Borne, 2 with Jeff Gaylord, 1 with Cody Michaels, 4 with Jerry Lawler, 3 with Robert Fuller, 2 with Brian Christopher); USWA Western States Tag (with Robert Fuller); USWA Southern Heavyweight 9x; WWF Intercontinental 6x; USWA Unified World 3x; USWA Heavyweight; PCW United States; WCW United States; NWA North American; WWF World Tag Team (with Owen Hart); WWF European; WCW World 4x; WWA World 2x; NWA World Heavyweight 6x; NWA Cyberspace; World Series Wrestling Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments – TNA Co-Founder and current Vice President; AWA’s Rookie of the Year in 1986; Winner of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Feud of the Year Award in 1992 (Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Lawler vs. the Moondogs)
Jeff Jarrett was born into the wrestling business. Christine Jarrett worked for promoters Nick Gulas and Roy Welch by taking tickets for their NWA Mid-American promotion. Over the years, she was promoted to the promotion’s office and eventually began promoting shows herself.
Her son began selling wrestling programs at seven. That son, Jerry, would begin promoting his own shows at the age of fourteen. When he returned from college, he entered the Gulas and Welch office while also working as a referee. To further add to his son’s pedigree, Jerry would marry the daughter of Memphis mainstay Eddie Marlin.
In the late 1970’s, Gulas and Welch split with each promoter taking one half of the territory. Jerry Jarrett, by now a wrestler, soon found himself as the booker for Welch’s half. In 1977, problems arose. Nick Gulas was insisting that his son George be booked in the main event. By this point, Jerry Jarrett had purchased Roy Welch’s share of the company. Backed by many of the company’s main wrestlers (including Jerry Lawler), Jarrett partnered with his mother and the two formed the Continental Wrestling Association. (Gulas’s company would close in 1980 when he retired, which paved the way for the CWA to become an NWA affiliate).
By 1986 Jeff Jarrett (Jerry’s son) was already working with the CWA as a referee. In April, Tony Falk (who was in the midst of a losing streak) decided that he would wrestle Jeff to break the streak. Jeff wrestled him to a ten minute draw.
It didn’t take long for Jarrett to win gold. By August of that year, he had joined forces with Pat Tanaka to capture the CWA International Tag Team championship from Tarzan Goto and Akio Sato. When Goto and Sato recaptured the belts in September, Jarrett allied with Paul Diamond to take the belts back before Goto and Sato took them back nearly two weeks later.
Jarrett recaptured gold two days after that – this time he tagged with Billy Joe Travis to defeat the Sheepherders (who had actually defeated Jarrett and Travis in a tournament final a week earlier) to win the AWA Southern Tag Team titles.
Jarrett and Travis would then enter into a feud with Tommy Lane and Mike Davis – the Rock N Roll RPMs. The RPMs captured the belts on January 5th of 1987. Jarrett and Travis took them back a week later. Another week later the belts returned to the RPMs. On February 2, Jarrett and former partner Pat Tanaka took the belts back and held them until they were defeated on the 23rd of February by Big Bubba and Goliath.
In early May of 1987 Moondog Spot had arrived in the CWA and was announced as the NWA Mid-America champion (the belt had been vacated when the Great Kabuki had departed the previous December). Jarrett immediately began feuding with Spot, taking the title on May 11th. On May 25th, Jarrett found himself disqualified in a match and the belt was returned to Spot. Jarrett took it back on June 1st and held it a week until Spot reclaimed it. Finally, on June 22nd, Jarrett ended the feud by once more recapturing the belt.
With Spot dealt with, Jarrett found himself back in the tag ranks as the AWA Southern Tag Team titles had been vacated after an injury to one of the Clones. Jarrett found himself in a familiar situation as he teamed again with Billy Joe Travis to win the titles in a tournament. However, the team they had defeated in the finals was Badd Company, which was composed of former Jarrett partners Paul Diamond and Pat Tanaka. August 8th Badd Company claimed the belts.
On September 7th, Jarrett lost his other belt as Carl Fergie defeated him for the NWA Mid-America belt. Jarrett reclaimed the belt a week later and held it until he was defeated by Jimmy Jack Funk on November 2nd. Jarrett took it back on November 9th and held it until December 7th, when he was defeated by Jerry Lawler. Lawler had also won the International championship that night and unified those two belts with his AWA Southern Heavyweight title to create the CWA Heavyweight title.
By October of 1988 Jarrett had found himself splitting his time between the CWA and the WCWA’s Dallas territory. October 15th saw Jarrett end Eric Embry’s nearly ten-month reign as the WCWA Light Heavyweight champion. Embry and Jarrett would go on to trade the belts again and again – Embry won it on November 11, and Jarrett won it on November 24th in Jacksonville, TN. Embry recaptured it on December 13th at Superclash III in Chicago, and Jarrett’s time with this belt was through.
During this time period, a great deal of turmoil was going on behind the scenes. The AWA, CWA, CWF, and WCWA had joined forces to present the Superclash III pay-per-view. In the main event the CWA’s Jerry Lawler had unified the AWA and WCWA world titles by defeating Kerry Von Erich.
The experiment soon collapsed as the other promoters suspected Verne Gagne of lying to them about how well the show had done, and felt short-changed on their payouts. As a result, the WCWA soon collapsed. Lawler quit competing on Gagne’s shows and was soon stripped of the AWA world title.
1989 saw Jarrett continuing to work for both CWA and WCWA. On March 11th Jarrett captured the CWA Heavyweight title from Dutch Mantell. The next night Jarrett teamed with Kerry Von Erich to win the WCW Tag Team titles. They held them for a week before losing them to the team of Cactus Jack and Super Zodiac II. On June 9th, Jarrett and lucha legend Mil Mascaras teamed to win the belts. On June 23rd, Robert Fuller and Brian Lee took the belts away. Jarrett and new partner Matt Borne recaptured the belts on June 30th before losing the belts to Cactus Jack and Scott Braddock.
That loss meant that Jarrett was completely without championship gold as he had lost the CWA Heavyweight title to Black Bart on June 26th.
Later in the year, Jerry Jarrett purchased 60 percent of the WCWA, uniting the two companies as the United States Wrestling Association. Lawler’s AWA world title, which was never returned to Gagne, soon became used as the USWA world title. The USWA itself began focusing its shows around the Tennessee and Texas areas.
In August, Jarrett and Borne defeated Cactus Jack and Braddock to win the USWA World Tag Team titles. Braddock partnered with Mark Starr to regain the belts in September. On September 22, the teams faced off again but the belts were held up. Jarrett and Borne won the rematch the following week. The belts wound up vacant in November when Borne lost a loser-leaves-USWA match.
By September of 1990, the Von Erichs and Jarrett had found themselves fighting over the company’s income. After KTVT dropped the USWA television show (reportedly due to Eric Embry’s ignoring the studio’s requests to cut down on his profanity), Jarrett pulled the USWA out of Texas, leaving Kevin Von Erich to start running the WCWA again. World Class would completely collapse by the end of the year.
It was about this time that Jarrett and new partner Jeff Gaylord had tried to get back into the USWA Tag Team title hunt. A match against Brian Lee and Don Harris on August 27th saw the belts held up and Jarrett and Gaylord won the rematch a week later. The following two weeks saw the belts traded back and forth. October 6th Doug Gilbert and Tony Anthony took the belts away.
Jarrett didn’t mourn the loss for long as that same day he defeated Dick Slater to win the USWA Southern Heavyweight title. He held the belt until October 29th, when Eddie Gilbert took it from him.
Again, it wouldn’t take long for Jarrett to regain the gold. He returned to the tag team ranks on November 24th with new partner Cody Michaels and took the USWA Tag Team titles back. They held the titles until December 8th, when Tony Anthony and Doug Gilbert reclaimed them.
In December of 1990, Eddie Gilbert had left the USWA, vacating the USWA Southern Heavyweight title in the process. On January 14, 1991, Jarrett defeated Brian Lee in the tournament final to begin his second title reign.
Jarrett and Lawler had also joined forces to try and recapture the USWA Tag Team titles. The belts were vacated after a match on January 28th against current champions the Fabulous Ones (Stan Lane and Steve Keirn). Jarrett and Lawler won the next week’s rematch to win the titles.
Jarrett soon found himself embroiled in a feud with Steve Austin over the Southern Heavyweight title, and that belt was held up after a match between the two on February 25th. Jarrett won the rematch to secure his claim to the belt.
However, this reign would not last long. Tom Prichard won the title on March 15th. A rematch on the 29th saw the belt held up and Jarrett recaptured it on April 5th. Prichard wasn’t through. The belt was vacated again on April 8th due to a controversy involving the match’s finish, and another match was scheduled for the 12th, which Jarrett also won.
Jarrett entered another belt-less phase soon after, as he defended the USWA Tag Team titles with Eddie Gilbert in a match that saw the belts won by the Texas Hangmen on March 26th. Eric Embry claimed the USWA Southern Heavyweight title on May 3rd.
May 13th saw Jarrett teaming with Robert Fuller to regain the USWA Tag Team belts. July 8th, the two lost the titles to the Barroom Brawlers, only to win them back on July 15th. The feud would stretch on into the fall as the Brawlers (now renamed as the Texas Outlaws) won the belts back on September 28th. Fuller and Jarrett regained them October 7, dropping the belts to Doug Masters and Rob Sawyer in early November.
By the summer of 1992, Jerry Lawler had entered a brutal feud with the Moondogs, who held the USWA Tag Team gold. He turned back to old ally Jarrett and the two captured the belts on June 29. The teams would trade the belts back and forth until October, when the Moondogs defeated Lawler in a handicap match to end the feud.
Jarrett turned his attention back to the Southern Heavyweight title at this point. He began feuding with Brian Christopher that winter and won the belt on December 21st. Christopher regained the belt on January 11 of 1993, and Jarrett reclaimed it on March 1st. Jarrett held the belt for two months before Christopher regained it. June 28th saw Jarrett win the belt again to end the feud.
Jarrett’s next challenger was the Vampire Warrior (best known as the WWF’s Gangrel). The Warrior won the belt on July 19th and Jarrett regained it August 23rd – just in time for the belt to be renamed the USWA Heavyweight championship. Wildfire Tommy Rich took the belt on September 13th. A rematch on the 15th ended in controversy as Rich’s hand was raised after Jarrett had won and the belt was held up. Jarrett won the October 4th rematch to end the feud.
Jarrett also soon returned his gaze to the tag team division. On October 16th, Tag Team champion Mike Anthony was injured by Moondogs Spike and the titles were vacated. On October 25th, Jarrett and former foe Brian Christopher defeated Jerry Lawler and the Red Knight (who would later be known as the Spellbinder) to win the belts. It would be a short reign as Koko B. Ware and Rex Hargrove captured the belts. Jarrett and Christopher regained the titles a week later.
Jarrett then saw his title reigns end. He lost the USWA Heavyweight title on November 22nd to Buddy Landel. On the 27th, PG-13 took the tag team titles.
However, there was a silver lining to that cloud. In 1992, the USWA and WWF had begun a working relationship that saw talent being traded. Jerry Lawler began appearing in the WWF and WWF stars began making appearances for USWA. That agreement ended in November of 1993. WWF representative (and former CWA standout) Randy Savage was stripped of the title and a new champion was crowned in a battle royal. Jarrett won the match and held the belt until December 20th when he was defeated by Jerry Lawler.
Change was in the air once again. November opened with vignettes airing on WWF television. Jarrett was now Double J, an arrogant wannabe country singer. Jarrett made his Raw debut on December 20th and defeated PJ Walker.
Jarrett’s pay-per-view debut was the 1994 Royal Rumble. He first showed up by assisting eight other men who helped Yokozuna defeat the Undertaker in a casket match, then went on to compete in the Rumble itself.
Later in the year, Jarrett’s entourage grew as he gained a well roadie in the form of the Roadie (currently competing in TNA as BG James).
At the 1995 Royal Rumble Jarrett gained his first WWF gold as he defeated Razor Ramon for the Intercontinental title. True to form for Jarrett, the belt would be held up on April 26th as a match between Jarrett and Bob Holly ended in a controversial fashion. Jarrett would win the match and begin his second reign on the next week’s Raw.
The May 14th In Your House saw Razor Ramon gaining momentum in his feud with Jarrett as he defeated both Jarrett and the Roadie in a handicap match. Sure enough, the 19th saw Ramon recapture the gold. Jarrett won the belt back on the 21st’s Raw and held it until July 23rd at the second In Your House PPV when he was defeated by Shawn Michaels after he and Sawyer Brown had performed his entrance music.
Jarrett vanished from the WWF shortly after that and returned to the USWA. By the end of the year, Jarrett had returned to the WWF but found himself pulling double-duty. Jarrett had begun a feud with Ahmed Johnson that saw Jarrett return to the USWA and defeat Ahmed for the USWA Unified World title on December 20th. The 17th had seen Jarrett make his WWF return and attack Ahmed after a match with Buddy Landell. Jarrett wound up disqualified in his Royal Rumble match against Ahmed thanks to the use of an acoustic equalizer. At the time he was also embroiled in a contract dispute with the WWF. Jarrett soon left and returned to the USWA. Not long after, the Roadie was repackaged as “the Real Double J†by claiming that he had sung Jarrett’s entrance theme instead of Jarrett himself.
Jarrett surrendered the USWA title in March after suffering a back injury, and Jerry Lawler won a tournament to regain the belt. April 20th saw Jarrett get a rematch and with the help of referee Frank Morrell (who faked a heart attack) he won the belt. Lawler would regain the belt on July 24th.
Jarrett was on the way out of the USWA and headed to WCW, where he debuted on the October 7th Nitro as a highly-desired free agent, with the NWO on one side and the legendary Horsemen on the other. Jarrett soon made his intentions clear. After defeating Hugh Morrus in his debut match, Jarrett grabbed a microphone and said that the NWO could stick it.
Jarrett soon joined the Horsemen. Jarrett’s personality, however grated on the other members (especially Mongo McMichael). Jarrett was finally allowed to go his own way (after events had seen him taking the United States title from fellow Horseman Dean Malenko) as he entered a feud with McMichael. In the end, although Debra (McMichael’s wife) turned on her husband to ally with Jarrett, McMichael got the last laugh by taking away Jarrett’s US title.
By October of 1997 Jarrett had left WCW and returned to the WWF. Although his character was originally portrayed as an egotist who wouldn’t wrestle unless everything around was to his satisfaction, by the end of the year Jarrett had allied with Jim Cornette’s NWA faction (winning the NWA North American title in the process).
By the following March, Jarrett had left the NWA faction and vacated the North American title as well. Afterward, Jarrett returned to his country singer roots and brought in Tennessee Lee (Robert Fuller, WCW’s Col. Parker) to serve as his manager. At April’s Unforgiven pay-per-view, Jarrett performed a concert with Sawyer Brown that saw a feud kindled with Steve Blackman.
After the feud with Blackman died down, Tennessee Lee brought in the tag team Southern Justice (Mark Canterbury and Dennis Knight – formerly the Godwinns) to work with Jarrett. This proved to be a mistake as Southern Justice and Jarrett soon fired Tennessee Lee.
Jarrett next began humiliating his opponents by cutting their hair. At Summerslam, Jarrett lost to X-Pac and had his long hair cut off. With his new look and new attitude, Jarrett underwent further changes. Even though Southern Justice vanished following the retirement of Mark Canterbury (who had been injured by a botched Doomsday Device earlier), Jarrett soon gained a new manager as Debra McMichael left WCW and joined him.
By early 1999, Jarrett had allied with real-life best friend Owen Hart. Hart and Jarrett would actually win the WWF tag team titles on January 29th and end the reigns of the Big Boss Man and Ken Shamrock.
Owen and Jarrett lost the belts in March to Kane and X-Pac, but continued tagging together. The two also soon got into an angle where it was tried to prove that Owen was the mysterious Blue Blazer. Owen and Jarrett would trade off wearing the mask, showing that Owen was obviously not the Blazer when the two were standing side-by side. In weeks to come, the Blazer was unmasked several times, revealing that both Jarrett and Owen had been under the mask. Sadly, the tag team was ended forever on May 23rd, when Owen Hart was killed in a tragic accident during the Over the Edge pay-per-view.
May 31st Jarrett defeated the Godfather to win the Intercontinental title. (This was actually Owen’s opponent at the pay-per-view, where it was rumored that he was scheduled to win the belt.) Jarrett’s title reign had a blip on July 24th, when he lost the title to Edge and regained it the next night after Edge accidentally speared Debra off the apron and Gangrel attacked Edge.
Jarrett’s reign ended in August, when D’Lo Brown (the European champion) defeated him for the title. At Summerslam later that month, however, Jarrett turned things around by (with the help of D’Lo’s supposed friend Mark Henry) defeating D’Lo to capture both belts. The next night Jarrett was feeling generous as he gave Henry the European title and hired an assistant for Debra named Miss Kitty (who would go on to become Women’s Champion the Kat).
About this same time, Jarrett began displaying strong misogynistic tendencies. Jarrett began attacking various women in the WWF – be they strong wrestlers like Jacqueline, Luna, and Ivory, or senior citizens like Mae Young and the Fabulous Moolah. Not even actress Cindy Margolis was safe from his wrath.
Things turned on Jarrett on September 23rd. After attacking the stage manager and locking her in the figure four leglock, the women he’d attacked showed up and jumped him with their champion – Chyna.
However, again, things were turning backstage even as a showdown between Jarrett and Chyna was set for the No Mercy PPV. Jarrett’s contract was up the day before the show, and he was still the Intercontinental champion. To make matters worse, it was apparent that Jarrett had no plans to re-sign. Then Jarrett demanded an unspecified amount of money to work the show (Jarrett claims that he wanted the remainder of the money that Vince McMahon would pay him for the year in one lump sum). McMahon paid (and added Jarrett to his blacklist), Jarrett appeared, and passed the Intercontinental title to Chyna.
The next night’s Nitro was the first night that saw Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera as the heads of WCW. La Parka had just defeated Buff Bagwell. Bagwell had begun berating Russo and Ferrera on the microphone for booking him to lose the match when Jarrett showed up and brained him with a guitar. Jarrett then introduced his catch phrase about having the stroke and left.
It didn’t take long for Jarrett to capture championship gold as he defeated Chris Benoit in December to claim the United States title. Also, Jarrett soon found himself in the midst of another stable as the NWO reformed. The new roster was Jarrett, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Bret Hart, and the Harris Brothers.
Jarrett’s reign had another bump as he was stripped of the title at the Souled Out PPV due to a concussion he’d suffered during a match with Jimmy Snuka on Nitro. The next night, new WCW commissioner Kevin Nash awarded the title back to Jarrett.
Finally, at Spring Stampede, Jarrett reached his goal. He had surrendered the US title on April 10th to the returning Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff. However, at the PPV, he defeated Diamond Dallas Page to win a tournament for the vacant WCW World title.
Still, Jarrett would have problems holding on to the belt. A week later he lost the title to Diamond Dallas Page. It would be the following month’s Slamboree before Jarrett regained the belt in a triple cage match against Page and David Arquette.
This time Jarrett kept it for two weeks before he was defeated by Ric Flair. A week later, Jarrett defeated Kevin Nash to win the title. Two days later, Nash defeated both Jarrett and Scott Steiner to win the title back. Then, on Nitro, Nash said that Flair (who had been stripped of the belt) had never really lost it so he returned it just in time for Jarrett to win the belt back.
Jarrett would retain the title until the infamous Bash at the Beach, where he laid down and let Hulk Hogan pin him. After Hogan left, Russo cut an interview bashing Hogan, then announced that Jarrett and Booker T would face off for the title later. The match took place, and Booker won.
Jarrett continued on the heel side of things in WCW, allying himself with Vince Russo and Scott Steiner. In January of 2001, Jarrett joined Ric Flair’s Magnificent Seven stable.
While Jarrett had racked up an impressive four world title reigns in WCW, none of that mattered in March of 2001. That was when the company was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation. And Vince McMahon had not forgotten Jarrett’s demands when he’d left. During the final Nitro (which saw its last half hour simulcast with Raw) McMahon specifically brought up Jarrett’s name as someone who was gone.
Jarrett wound up signing with Australia’s World Wrestling All-Stars. On their first pay-per-view on October 26, 2001, Jarrett went through a tournament for the vacant title. He defeated Nathan Jones, Buff Bagwell, and the Road Dogg to win the belt. (The Road Dogg had defeated Jarrett a week earlier on a house show to win the title.)
Jarrett lost the belt to Nathan Jones on April 7th in a fatal fourway match. The two other competitors were Brian Christopher and Scott Steiner.
Shortly thereafter, Jarrett and his father Jerry launched their own company – NWA Total Nonstop Action. In a surprising departure from tradition, NWATNA elected to run weekly pay-per-views instead of seeking a regular television outlet. Their main selling point was the fact that the four $9.95 PPVs a month provided 8 hours of wrestling while the WWE’s PPV for $29.95 only provided three. In addition, NWATNA signed a deal with the NWA board of directors which gave them control over the NWA World and Tag Team titles.
It didn’t take long for Jarrett to claim gold in NWATNA. Jarrett defeated Ron Killings in August of 2002 to win the NWA title (making him the third champion of the NWATNA era). Jarrett’s first reign was noteworthy because the following May he also defeated Sting on the final WWA show to unify the NWA and WWA world titles. Jarrett lost the title to AJ Styles on June 11th.
Jarrett recaptured the belt in October and traded it back to Styles on April 21st in a steel cage match. Jarrett would regain the belt (and gain a new nickname) in June, as he won the first-ever King of the Mountain match.
The newly-crowned King of the Mountain would hold the title for nearly a year before finally losing it to AJ Styles on May 15th. Jarrett would enter into a feud with Raven, Sabu, and Rhino that would end when America’s Most Wanted allied with him and helped him reclaim the world title from Raven shortly before the debut of Impact on Spike TV.
Jarrett wouldn’t keep the title for long as Rhino captured it at the Bound for Glory PPV. Jarrett reclaimed the belt less than two weeks later on Impact, again with help from AMW.
As 2005 closed, Jarrett was on top of the world. His feud with Raven was firmly in the past, and he had gotten the best of Rhino at every turn. However, there was another problem ahead.
After Jarrett retained the title at Turning Point, the lights went out and a spotlight came on. The spotlight shone down onto a black trenchcoat and a black baseball bat. Sting was coming.
It didn’t take long for Jarrett to circle the wagons. On the next Impact he allied not only with Gail Kim and AMW, but also joined forces with Abyss, Team Canada, and Monty Brown.
Jarrett still had other problems distracting him as well. Jackie Gayda started claiming that Jarrett had promised to hire her, only to get Gail Kim instead. She demanded money or she would reveal the truth about him. It wouldn’t take long for Jarrett to use Alex Shelley to get a videotape of Jackie that would force her to join him. Gayda would remain in that position until she became pregnant and left TNA.
During all of this, Jarrett had again lost the title – this time to TNA newcomer Christian Cage (who had joined forces with Sting). Jarrett turned to Shelley again and demanded that he get some footage of Sting that he could use to blackmail him. Instead, Sting caught Shelley and promised to be at the Destination X PPV.
At Destination X, Jarrett, Abyss, and AMW faced off against Team 3D, Rhino, and Ron Killings. As promised, Sting appeared and attacked Team Jarrett. Unfortunately for Sting, Jarrett had another surprise up his sleeve as Scott Steiner debuted and went after Sting.
As March wound down, Sting demanded a War Games match. The match took place at Lockdown and was dubbed the Lethal Lockdown. Sting, Killings, Rhino, and AJ Styles took on Jarrett, Steiner, and AMW. Although Sting won, Jarrett still wanted a rematch.
On the following week’s Impact, Jarrett and Steiner demanded that Sting reveal his partner. Sting offered to let them choose. Jarrett refused and Sting revealed Buff Bagwell and Lex Luger, then said that they were no longer eligible to be his partner. A week later, Rick Steiner was added to the list. Sting finally revealed his partner as the undefeated Samoa Joe. Sting and Joe won the match to put the feud on hold.
Afterward, Slammiversary promised another King of the Mountain match. Jarrett won the match and the belt, defeating Christian, Sting, Abyss, and Ron Killings. Jim Cornette was disgusted by the way the match had ended (referee Earl Hebner had pushed Cage off a ladder) and immediately vacated the belt.
After the King of the Mountain, Jarrett went after Sting again. Finally, in August, Jarrett challenged Sting to a title versus career match after Sting had lost a title match to Jarrett (with the help of Christian, who had turned on Sting). If Sting lost, he would retire. Sting accepted.
However, Bound for Glory was still a month away and Cornette would not make it an easy one. At No Surrender, Joe defeated Jarrett in a Fans’ Revenge Lumberjack match and stole the NWA World title as he left.
In October, Jarrett got the physical belt returned to him after Kurt Angle entered TNA and immediately squared off with Joe just in time for Bound for Glory. At Bound for Glory, Sting won the NWA World title for the first time since 1990. Jarrett then disappeared until April.
In April of 2007, Jarrett returned to TNA to ally with Team Angle (Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Jarrett, and Sting) as they took on Team Cage (Christian, AJ Styles, Tomko, and Abyss) at Lockdown. In the end, Sting defeated Abyss for the win.
Jarrett then moved on to ally with Eric Young. Young had signed a contract with Robert Roode and been bullied by Roode ever since. Young had finally revealed that he had a friend who would help him. The friend was revealed as Jarrett appeared and attacked Roode. Roode would, however, defeat Jarrett at Sacrifice.
The feud was put on hold as Jarrett’s wife Jill passed away following a long battle with cancer and Jarrett returned home to be with his family. Jarrett appeared in a video at Slammiversary, where he addressed his wife’s death publicly for the first time and announced that he would be taking time away from the ring. As of this writing, Jarrett has yet to return.
As stated above, Jeff Jarrett is an extremely talented wrestler who catapulted to stardom in the USWA, only to see his career stall in the midcard in the WWF and WCW. After another failed run in the WWF, he returned to WCW where, with Vince Russo’s help, he established himself as a strong contender to the title. After the buyout, he and his father started a promotion which has rapidly become the number two company in the nation. In a career spanning over twenty years, Jeff Jarrett has definitely earned his spot on the top 100 list.
The entire Top 100 Wrestlers feature can be found here.
