publicly fired by Vince McMahon during the final WCW Nitro telecast, teamed up with his father Jerry Jarrett to form the Total Nonstop Action (TNA) brand. TNA started off with weekly pay-per-views, before landing a television slot in 2004. During the infancy of TNA, names such as AJ Styles, Bobby Roode, Christopher Daniels, Jerry Lynn, James Storm, and Low Ki were all instrumental in building the brand to national recognition.
In addition, names such as Scott Hall, Rick Steiner, Gangrel, Buff Bagwell, Steve Corino, and Ken Shamrock were all a part of the inaugural show on June 19, 2002, and WWE Hall of Famer Ricky Steamboat was the special guest referee of the NWA Championship main event between Ken Shamrock and Malice, which Shamrock won.
In the description of the Hall of Fame resume of Jarrett, WWE mentioned his upbringing in the wrestling industry by his father Jerry.
“Double J’s road to the WWE Hall of Fame began at birth. The son of Tennessee wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett, Jeff grew up around the industry, eventually becoming a referee before competing between the ropes at the age of 18. While many promoters’ sons had entered the ring and flamed out, Jarrett was a prodigy inside the squared circle. It was easy to see that he would be a Superstar as he competed against and alongside the likes of WWE Hall of Famers Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler, Nick Bockwinkel and countless others.”
Former WWE tag team star Paul Diamond was a recent guest on the Pancakes and Powerslams Show, and discussed Jarrett going into the Hall of Fame. Diamond, who tagged with and competed against Jeff in their days with the Continental Wrestling Association, felt that Jeff learned a lot by being groomed by his father, and turned out to be a good wrestler.
“Jeff turned out to be a real good talent,” said Diamond. “Jeff had just graduated from high school was 18 years old, and we briefly were tag team partners, but shortly after that is when I first tagged up with Pat Tanaka and actually worked against Jeff and Billy Travis. He was just getting started. Like I said, he was 18 years old, skinny as a rail, and just out of high school. So, he was learning his way, but he did very well. He was a good talent.”
While Diamond praised Jarrett for being a good talent, he has his reservations about Jeff having a stand-alone WWE Hall of Fame resume.
“But wrestling sometimes is not necessarily what we know but who we know,” said Diamond. “Not necessarily that he didn’t deserve the breaks that he got, he was a good talent and a good worker, but at the same time, his father Jerry Jarrett had owned the Tennessee territory there, the Tennessee company.” He added, “I’m just not sure that anybody else that had the same abilities would have got the breaks that he had, had his father not been a promoter.”
You can hear the full interview below.
