Against The Grain 8.09.09: The Love/Hate Relationship With Jeff Jarrett

Welcome everyone back to Against The Grain, my take on some of the most unconventional and not-often talked about subjects in the wrestling world. J-E-Double F…J-A-Double R-E-Double T. This is the way that I was first introduced to the wrestler known as Jeff Jarrett back in the good ol’ 90s. Ever since these country-singing days, my opinion of Jarrett has gone from admiring his in-ring skills and old school promos to hating the man’s guts upon sight right back to admiring his skills once again. I want to look back at why I liked the guy in the first place, why I and many others hated everything he did at one point, and why some seem to have a crazy balance of wanting to decide if they love or hate Double J. Also please stay afterwards here to check out my “WTF?!?” section below covering the weirdness of the Big Show’s first WWE Title run and the greatness of…Scotty Too Hotty?!?. Hope y’all enjoy.

Love him or hate him…it’s Double J!

Ain’t…I…Great…?!?
For the couple of weeks, news has leaked out that TNA owner and former full-time wrestler, Jeff Jarrett has “excused” himself from the company amongst the rumors that he and Karen Angle, the recent ex-wife of main TNA star Kurt Angle have been knocking boots on the side. After seeing this news and reading the multiple comments from readers hating the living hell out of the man, it randomly ignited some memories of the days when I horribly despised the guy as well. For the last few months, I’ve been seriously enjoying his return to the ring scene but I was wondering why the heck I hated Jarrett myself not that long ago. To figure this out, I wanted to take a look back at my viewing history with the antics of Jeff Jarrett.

Back in the mid-90s when I was starting to develop my love for the sport of wrestling, I immediately took notice to Jarrett when he first came to the WWF. His promo videos that he had him walking down the streets of Tennessee and talking about the country music industry were priceless old school heel material. He talked with an “annoying” southern accent, walked around the ring with a horribly cocky (but oh so awesome) strut, and stated the most arrogant catchphases, including the infamous “Ain’t I Great”. On top of this, I loved the guy’s classic matches over the Intercontinental Championship with the likes of Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels, which showcased his very sharp technical skills. Despite proving some great memories (including the infamous “With My Baby Tonight” song controversy), I kind of lost track of Jarrett’s whereabouts when I suddenly took a long break from watching wrestling and then discovered that the man transferred in WCW.

So when my wrestling watching habits resurfaced with the WWE’s “Attitude Era”, I found myself becoming a fan of Jarrett’s all over again when I saw him return to his former home in the WWF. While this time around he initially started out with a pretty lackluster push with his “NWA” title run and being a near lower-mid carder (with his swell manager Tennessee Lee), I still (despite being the only one in my group of friends) wanted to cheer the crap out of Double J. Thankfully with the upping of every wrestler in the WWE turning into a bad-ass, Jarrett also went along with the change by cutting his hair, changing his corny ring outfit, and adapting a seriously needed attitude adjustment. Gone was the Double J that came out to very corny entrance music and 20 ft tall fireworks of his initials. Now the man was a killer heel who simply just beat the living crap out of anyone who got in his way with his sick hits with his multiple guitars (not used for playing music anymore thankfully). So after a very good tag team run with his partner Owen Hart (before his tragic death) and a very awesome run as a mega asshole heel who was a terrible bully beating up women (mainly with his feud with Chyna), Jarrett carried his super bad-guy role in his former home of WCW. There I surprisingly liked Jarrett a little bit more because straight-off the bat, they made the guy look like a serious World Title contender, as opposed to he seemingly hitting the “glass ceiling” while doing a great job in WWE. Despite WCW’s slowly but surely dying when he arrived, Jarrett managed to make the best of it by being a major part in one of the last incarnations of the nWo, getting a huge push as being touted as “The Chosen One”, and putting in some pretty good matches against main challenger Booker T over the WCW Title. Once WCW folded over, instead of going back to WWE (which didn’t welcome him back at all) Jarrett decided to team up with his father, Jerry, to form the company now known as TNA. This is officially when my love/hate relationship began with Jeff.

As I slowly turned to TNA’s weekly PPVs (luckily for free with my friend’s bootleg cable hookup), as an alternative to WWE’s horribly stale product at the time, I was very happy to see the antics of Jarrett on my TV screen again. So instead of a guy hitting a glass ceiling or a dude who was main-event material in a straight-up dying company, Jeff Jarrett finally seem to me like a legit World Title contender that was making his presence known in a new company (minus his obvious connection to TNA as being part-owner…which I’ll get to in a minute). As a heel, his feuds over the World Title with the likes of the then-upcoming AJ Styles and Raven (and even his often-forgotten early face turn against folks like Christopher Daniels) kept me glued into TNA and retained my liking for Double J. But after the first 3 years of regularly viewing TNA, I noticed something…Jarrett seemed like the only one who was constantly TNA champion. I saw AJ Styles win the belt. Raven win. And even Ron Killings. But their title reigns were only maybe 1 or 2 months at the most and were honestly a bit unmemorable. Jarrett as a monster heel always seemed to be in every single main event and while I always liked the guy, I was starting to get pissed off watching him in the same role on EVERY SINGLE TNA show. This is when the hate begun. I started despising the holy hell out of Jarrett and slowly watched TNA less and less because of his constant grip on the top spot. I was honestly thinking what everyone else with the same feelings were…”Just because Jarrett is part-owner of TNA doesn’t mean that he always has to be world champ every other month”. So my once-favoritism for Jeff was now replaced with pure and utter distaste in his role in TNA. This was generally the case until Bound For Glory 2006.

I saw this event live in my good ol’ hometown of Michigan with my friend and going into it with the main event of Jarrett vs. Sting for the TNA Title, I still hold tight onto my hate for Jeff and desperately wanted him to lose. But magically in the middle of the match after me and everyone in the area was booing their heads off for Jarrett, I had another realization about the guy. For as much as I hated his freaking guts for always being on top, Jarrett was a hell of a heel. The man acquired so much damn heat in his domination of the World Title scene that it equaled something that was truly rarely seen amongst other wrestlers nowadays. So strangely at the end of the Sting/Jarrett bout, me and my friend were actually cheering for Jeff. Yep I said it…cheering loudly for the man whom I once hated. That week on Impact, I saw the special “post-match” interview with Jarrett after Bound For Glory, when he emotionally broke down into tears and stated that he was going to take some time off to spend with his family. This is exactly what I was finally hoping for…some TNA TV without Jarrett always popping up on my screen. So when Jarrett came back six months later, I was really glad to see the guy again. After participating in that year’s Lethal Lockdown match and helping put some younger talent over in his feud involving Robert Roode and Eric Young, I thought that Jarrett was seemingly turning over a new leaf, as least character-wise. While I started liking Jarrett again after his initial comeback, I think that some other hardcore Jarrett-haters didn’t like warming up to him until after the tragic death of his cancer-stricken wife. It may sound messed-up to say that fans only liked Jarrett in sympathy for his loss, but this is honestly the truth because you really can’t hate on a wrestler (character-wise) if their real life situation (i.e. horrible career-threatening injury) causes them to become a default “face”. So when Jarrett “officially” returned to the ring last year to face Kurt Angle at Bound For Glory, fans mostly sided with Jarrett and seemingly all but forgotten about his widely-hated stay at the top years before.

In conclusion, some people may have the same exact love/hate relationship I have had with Jeff Jarrett. Loving him in WWE, WCW, and early TNA. Hating him for his long runs at the top in the later years of TNA. Then loving him again with his recent “comeback” against Angle and the Main Event Mafia. So with the hot-off-the-presses news of his backstage shenanigans with Karen Angle, it initially brought up my hatred for Jarrett due to my back-of-the-head thinking of Jarrett “abusing” his ownership position. But I quickly reminded myself of why I took a liking to Double J in the first place and made me realize why I and a bunch of others have been on and off in liking or disliking JE-DOUBLE F…JA-DOUBLE R-E-DOUBLE T.

For Your Viewing Pleasure
“Introducing Jeff Jarrett” promo

The greatness that was “Jeff & Owen”

His “greatest hits” in WCW

WTF?!?
Welcome ladies and gents again to another edition of “WTF”, the section that covers the weird and strange occurances that I’ve obversed in my close watching of wrestling in the last 10 or so years. From the Bananas in Pajamas wrestling in a battle royal to really random face and heel turns that make had made sense at the time but seem really strange now, I want to cover it all. This edition I cover the odd first (and seemingly last) real World Title defense of The Big Show and footage of Scotty 2 Hotty…as a wrestling genius (…maybe not genius).

Scotty 2 Hotty…Cruiserweight Pro?!?…WTF?!?
Back in the good ol’ heyday of the WWE “Attitude” days, the randomly placed team of Too Cool was formed with the talents of Rikishi, Grandmaster Sexay (aka Brian Christopher, Jerry Lawler’s son), and the wild-haired Scotty 2 Hotty. The trio was mostly known for hilarious kicking their opponents’ asses and then concluding their bouts with a laugh-out-loud dance routine. Besides the dancing, these guys weren’t really known for having remarkable in-ring abilities. That is until Scotty 2 Hotty went toe-to-toe with AND successfully hung in tight in the ring with the master technician known as Dean Malenko. Dean, who wasn’t known for dancing goofy in the ring, was well-known as the man who could physically dissect any wrestler to pieces if he wanted to, and in this series of matches against one half of Too Cool, the man was actually well-challenged and matched against the guy whose first name rhymed with his last. So again…WTF?!? Witness some of this below…

The Big Show vs. Big Boss Man feud…over the WWE World Title…WTF?!?
Survivor Series 1999. The PPV event that took place in my good ol’ hometown of Detroit. The main event was seen to be one of the ages…a triple threat match over the WWE World Title with long-time bitter rivals Stone Cold, The Rock, and HHH. But suddenly and randomly, when Stone Cold was mysteriously “ran over by a car” (i.e. out with an injury), the Big Show took the empty spot and in turn became the new WWE World Champion. While this seemed somewhat disappointing because of Stone Cold’s absence, I thought that this turn of events wasn’t so bad and was cool that someone different other than Stone Cold, the Rock, or Triple H was champion. But then unfortunately with Show’s first (and last) major PPV opponent, all of my high hopes turned sour when it turned out to be the Big Boss Man. For the record, I am one of the few that I know of to have seriously liked this new incarnation of the Boss Man…BUT… to see him randomly go into a big-time World Title feud with Show, that involved the guy making fun of Show’s “dad” (kayfabe) by talking shit, smashing his dad’s watch, and stealing his dad’s casket (all of this shit fake of course), was one of the worst World Title programs I’ve EVER seen. Love the Big Show, like Boss Man, but putting a World Title in the mix of their insanely wacky rivalry was one of strangest WTF?!? moves I’ve seen the WWE ever take.