411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: ‘Jeff Jarrett and The Battle for TNA’ Part III

-Written: 7.14.26
-Source: Vice
-Run Time: 1 Hour (w/ commercials)

-Plugs: Dark Side of the Ring, “Jeff Jarrett and the Battle for TNA” Part I and Part II

-Chris Jericho is our narrator!

-Jeff says it is hard to put into words how he felt watching the product while sitting at home. He knew Hogan was on the way and was excited for the brand. Eric Bischoff says that Hogan believed until the day that he died that there was a lot of value in the Hulk Hogan brand. He gets choked up a little as he says it is still hard to say “until he died.”

-Awesome Kong says a meeting was called, and Dixie basically told people it was time for a change. “You can choose to support me or not, but if not, you will have to find another place to work.” They have the footage of her that meeting, and yeah, kind of rough, but I assume she felt she needed to lay down the law. Sahadi says that is when she lost control of the locker room. JJ says it was all ego for her.

-JJ got a call that Panda wanted him to back, and that rocked his world. He asked what they had in mind, and he was brought back for live events and international events. His strategy was to let things play out.

-We had Hogan and Bischoff working with Russo, and we go back to Bash at The Beach 2000. My review for that is here, and my review for the Dark Side episode is here. Russo says he was told by Dixie that Eric is only involved in the Hulk Hogan creative. Eric notes that Hogan didn’t want to work anywhere near Russo. Eric tells us that he and Russo cleared the air and shook hands on the idea to make it work. Russo says Eric’s game was to get control of the company. Eric says it evolved into his leading creative because he has a strong personality. JJ thought Hogan was coming in as a brand ambassador, but he was in total control and revamped the roster.

-They go over that Hogan brought in his friends, and Kong thought it was bullshit. Matt Hardy says they weren’t going to add to the product. Jeff thought it was going to be a disaster as Hogan wanted to change everything about TNA.

-One of the first things they did was get rid of the six-sided ring. Jarrett calls that a big mistake. I agree with Bischoff and was never a fan of the six-sided ring. He calls it stupid, and again, I agree. The fact that the four-sided ring was safer to bump in was an added bonus. Eric says if you are going to have a six-sided ring, use it and have something that uses the extra sides, or otherwise it has no purpose. Russo goes on a rant about why he had problems and issues. Hogan was doing what was best for Hulk and not TNA. He calls it bullshit and says he worked for TNA and Hogan worked for Hogan.

-The next decision was to take TNA head-to-head with WWE. D-Lo Brown says that was the dumbest thing, as WWE spent more on pyro than they did on production. Russo says they did not have the money to compete with them. JJ says people asked him how long this was going to happen, and he told them he was powerless. He then says Hogan took them from making money to a financial death spiral in less than 12 months. Is there proof of this out there?

-Commercials!

-Jan. 4, 2010: Impact goes head-to-head with RAW for the first time. TNA draws its biggest audience ever. Eric knew it wasn’t going to work long term, but they got what they wanted. Russo knew it would not work. Matt Hardy says one looked major league and the other like minor league. D-Lo: “We were the fly on the ass of a rhino.” Jeff thinks Hogan was there to move pieces around to get his next raise.

-Jarrett was then asked to step back in the ring. He does his best Russo impression as he tells Jeff they needed “this story.” He pitched the angle of Jeff and Karen working a storyline with Kurt. The idea was that Jeff took Karen from Kurt. Dixie signed off, and Eric says he knew there was a lot of stress between Dixie and Jeff. It seems Eric wasn’t as in favor of the story as Russo was. Jeff laughed as he had to be the bad guy, and it made Karen into an evil bitch. Karen says it was easy for the fans to hate them and cheer Kurt. Awesome Kong saw two men put their differences aside and work for the betterment of TNA. D-Lo calls it the most productive story TNA ever had. Karen says people thought it was real, and Jeff says he still gets comments online. He says he and Kurt have co-parented their kids since 2010. Karen says if Jeff had stolen her, Kurt would have never gone through with the story. Well, to be fair, Edge and Matt Hardy did, and their stuff was real life. Jeff says it was a power play by Dixie to make sure she stayed in power.

-Victory Road 2011: Here we go! Jeff Hardy says it was a really tough time in his personal life. Eric says everyone knew Jeff was involved in drugs, but for the most part had it under control. D-Lo Brown was the agent on the match, and he could tell in seconds that Jeff was not in his right state of mind. Matt says he was excited for Jeff as he was wrestling someone like Sting, whom he watched growing up. He was told Jeff is not in a good state, and Matt’s heart sank. Eric and D-Lo agreed to let Jeff go to the ring and hoped he could walk it off. Dixie didn’t know what to do, and everyone was looking at everyone else as Jeff is doing weird stuff in the ring.

-Commercials!

-JJ says Jeff seemed okay earlier in the day. Russo then called and told him to get over there now. Eric heads to the ring and tells Jeff to turn around and get out of the ring. Jeff was just gone, and it didn’t register. Jeff says it was a blur, but he remembers Eric yelling at him. Eric went to Sting and told him to hit his finisher and get it finished. Jeff admits it was careless, and you can see that he is embarrassed. JJ says he was 15 seconds into the replay and was angry as he wondered how they let him walk through the curtain. JJ knew he could only make things worse, so he left. D-Lo admits there were a million right choices and one wrong one, and they made the wrong one. JJ says that at the time he didn’t understand how Jeff got to that point, but he knows about addiction now. Jeff Hardy says the drug addict Jeff Hardy died that night, and it was his wake-up call. Matt says Jeff stopped taking pills that night. JJ hated that it happened during Dixie’s watch and says ultimately she was responsible.

-Jeff Hardy ends up beating JJ in a loser-leaves-TNA match. That lets JJ work on shows in India. The financial situation was getting worse, and after four years, Hogan decided it was time to leave. Eric says Hogan wanted to leave as part of a story instead of just disappearing off-screen. We get Hogan quitting and then Dixie begging him to stay and grabbing Hogan’s leg. Russo doesn’t want to know the amount of money Dixie spent on Hogan and Eric. He calls what Hogan did disgusting. JJ says that moment said everything about Dixie’s knowledge of wrestling.

-We get to Toby Keith as he asked JJ what was happening with TNA, and Jeff said it was a financial death spiral. Toby wanted to help and told the lawyers he would only come on to help if JJ was in charge. They weren’t going to go for that, so Jeff resigned from the company.

-Commercials!

-JJ left TNA but starts Global Force Wrestling. He ran The Grand Slam Tour, where they worked in baseball stadiums. TNA was sold to Anthem, as Cornette says Dixie’s parents had enough. Anthem changed the name of the company to Impact, and they get together with JJ’s Global Force Wrestling for a merger. Karen was skeptical and says she has PTSD from hearing about it. JJ just had the idea that he could make this work again.

-Sahadi says Jeff was on a revenge tour, and that made for a dark time. JJ says he knew he was struggling, and the realities became clear in less than two months. He says there was no money, and he was fed bullshit. Karen says Jeff was battling substance issues, but she justified the drinking as he was trying to support her and the kids. Sahadi says the drinking made them all sad. Scott D’Amore doesn’t pass judgment because he comes from a family of addicts.

-Jeff admits he broke his rule of not drinking until his match was over and he was out of the public eye. He was at a pool party and saw his beer gut and switched to vodka because he didn’t want to be a beer gut guy. Karen says he was killing himself.

-JJ travels to Mexico for AAA TripleMania. He was told to hang out in the dressing room until rehearsals, and he had the bottle with him and just kept drinking. They never did a rehearsal, but he was smashed by the time they left. He woke up the next morning and started drinking again. We see video of Vampiro’s documentary, and Jeff is just GONE. He pulled a Jeff Hardy, but more offensive, as he is throwing tortillas out to the crowd and causing issues backstage. He flew home on Labor Day and was told by Anthem that they wanted him to go to rehab. Jeff was mad at Scott D, but Scott said he was okay if Jeff never talked to him as long as he got sober.

-Commercials!

-JJ went to outpatient for four hours a day for six weeks. He sat in the front row and took the best notes. He played the part of someone wanting to get out. Jeff started drinking on the plane to Calgary and then on the plane back home. He continued drinking once he got home. Hardy talks about rock bottom and wondering how you were going to come back from this. Karen says she had to call 911 on two separate occasions as she thought he was dying. Karen then confronted him and asked what he wanted to do. JJ says it was God speaking through him: “I am going for treatment.” She called the WWE Wellness department, and they got Jeff to a place in Tampa. That clause that WWE will pay for treatment for anyone who ever worked for them is one of the best things they have ever done. She didn’t want to leave him.

-Jeff didn’t know what an alcoholic was and learned he still had issues with his father. They ended up reconciling. Karen is grateful it happened. Jeff also had to deal with the loss of Owen and burying that emotional pain. Dealing with the passing of his first wife and hiding that pain so he could be a father and run TNA. He admits he got honest with himself in those eight weeks. He made it home just before Christmas.

-He gets a call from WWE on the first Sunday of 2018. He tells Karen the call was from Vince, and he wants to put JJ in the Hall of Fame. Jeff admits he got emotional as everything he went through, and this is how 2018 started. We see highlights from his Hall of Fame speech. Jeff says without the valleys, it is impossible to have the mountaintops.

-Commercials!

-Next week: Necro Butcher vs. Samoa Joe!

-Jeff says he works for AEW, and it is founded by a guy who is passionate about pro-wrestling. Tony says he loves having Jeff in the office. Jeff started as a heel and was asked to be in The Owen, and they asked him what Owen meant to him. We see Jeff break down talking about Owen, and it turned him into a babyface that night in Chicago. He calls it a full-circle moment and starts crying. Tony says Jeff is in a great place and puts over his great ideas. They talk about Jeff working with the young talent and turning them into stars. Jeff says he is more passionate and engaged with pro-wrestling than he has ever been.

-The talking heads put over how great Jeff is and how he has changed the business. Russo says if Jeff had never lost control of TNA, only God knows where they would be right now. Probably the same place. They were never getting bigger, and AEW would have surpassed them.

-They discuss how TNA is still alive and kicking. Bischoff is happy TNA is still around and says that is a credit to Jeff and Jerry, even if the company is completely different. D-Lo says TNA is Jeff Jarrett, and Jeff Jarrett is TNA. Scott Steiner says Jeff always comes back from getting knocked down. Jeff has the last word and says he always bet on himself and teaches his kids to get up and bat, as life is more enjoyable.

-As many have stated, this is more a Jeff Jarrett story than a TNA story, which is fine. This show desperately needed Dixie Carter for her side, but I can understand why she wanted no part of rehashing all of this. You can easily tell Karen is not a fan of Dixie, while Jeff tries to be a little more diplomatic. We, of course, got the Hogan bashing from Russo and some from JJ. Bischoff was there to present some of their side. Jeff gets all the credit for getting himself clean, and I am always a fan of people getting their lives back on track.

As a wrestler, I was never a JJ fan and can see the hypocrisy of his calling out Hogan for doing what’s best for Hogan, when he did the same for himself in the early days of TNA. I did like this being a three-part episode because they had a lot to cover, and there was no way to cut some of this out and edit it into an hour-long episode. Everyone will have a side they choose, and what we got here was mainly JJ’s side with his friends backing him up. We needed more from the other side, but Bischoff could only offer so much. Cornette was mainly there for the history, and Russo was there to crush Hogan and Bischoff, bury in-ring wrestling, and take credit for putting a masturbating midget on TV.

I don’t think TNA would be any better if Jeff had control the entire time, and really, it may have folded without Panda injecting the money they needed. TNA is the little engine that could, as it keeps finding ways, and is now in a partnership with WWE that helped it get a TV deal. The wrestling business is better because JJ founded TNA, as it gave us fans something different after the fall of ECW and WCW. It gave a national and world audience to guys like Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode, and gave veterans a place to work with these younger talents. For that, we do owe Jeff and Jerry a thank you. Much like we owe Tony, Cody, The Bucks, etc credit for AEW giving us another option.

Overall, I found this enjoyable even if it came off sometimes as a way for Jeff to better his image. I really wish we had gotten something from Dixie, as she was the key missing piece. Maybe somewhere down the line, she will do an interview or write a book. Kurt’s side would have been interesting as well, but again, I can understand why he didn’t want to do this. He seems to be in a good place as well. For now, you have three hours of Jeff giving his side and Jeff detailing his battle with addiction. The latter I applaud! Thanks for reading!