WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett, who is also All Elite Wrestling’s Director of Business Development, appeared on an episode of his “My World with Jeff Jarrett” podcast. In it, he discussed various topics, including WWE’s rise in 1987 impacting other promotions.
Jarrett said, “And so that’s where I was going with — we’ll call it the North vs. the South or the WWE vs. others in a lot of ways. Because it was Watts, it was Florida, it was — hell, even Montreal. But anyway, it was anybody from Texas, and we kind of dove into that life support. But anyway, all the southern territories — Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama with the Fullers, David Woods that we touched on last week, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, all that North vs. South. Well, fast forward to the Hulkster — I meanto Hall and Nash and Hulk Hogan showing up in the nWo. All of a sudden, the real story became TV. Here’s the WWF invading WCW, you could suspend disbelief. That’s why I’m saying this war affected [things] in a lot of ways. Because again the three generations, all these fans, they didn’t just die overnight. You know, I think Cornette is the one who says, ‘They didn’t just crawl up in a cave. No, they just quit watching.’ Well, these people were there, and I just think it was lightning in a bottle.”
On the view of pay-per-views in 1987 from other promotions:
“You know, from ’86 to ’90, the amount of times I sat in the wrestling office and only got to hear [his father’s] side of a phone call. But hours upon hours. And he spent — there was a period here where he thought he was going to acquire an ESPN timeslot and basically acquire the AWA. And he and Verne had many, many conversations and I know there were some bankers involved in trying to get that across the line. Then obviously, we’re going to get into the Texas story even in the later ’80s. But no, we’ve talked about it. SuperClash III — or SuperClash, whatever it was. Lawler vs. Von Erich in ’88, just the following year, that was kind of their attempt at it. And I’m jumping a little bit too far ahead, but when I kind of look at it and think — look, my dad’s prideful and has a lot of ego, like all men, and especially promoters. And he probably didn’t show all of his cards certainly to me, or probably not even to Lawler. But him kind of viewing it and knowing, ‘Okay, SuperClash didn’t work out great.’ But I think in a lot of ways, and I can remember over and over and over, the conversations my father would have was — this is where I took my hat off to him. Because kind of the vision of it all was — so Vince’s entire roster for the most part was built off, I don’t say guys that he stole from territories. That’s not right, but you know where I’m going with it. Hogan worked in these territories, Japan, Tennessee, Verne and Savage did here, and this guy worked here. And even Warrior worked three or four territories. But you know, all of his talent got seasoned before he got him. And my dad was just hell-bent and very much said, ‘Hey, man, I can develop talent. I’ve done it.’ And so he leaned heavy into those conversations with Vince, starting in, what would that be? ’88, ’89, ’90? Like the regular cadence of them, ‘Vince, let me develop talent for you. Let me develop talent for you.’ Later, it became somewhat of a developmental territory. But yeah, I think my dad probably figured out pretty quick by observing the Crockett situation. But then the SuperClash thing was like, ‘This ain’t going to work. You can’t—it’s just not going to work. You can’t compete with the guy.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
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