Jeff Jarrett On LA Knight’s Success, Says He Just Needed The Right Opportunity At The Right Time

On the latest episode of My World With Jeff Jarrett, the WWE Hall of Famer talked about having LA Knight in Impact in 2017, his attempt to get back Mike Tenay for Slammiversary that year, and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On whether he could see the potential of Knight he is today at the time: “Look, it’d be just so silly for me to say, ‘Oh, absolutely.’ But when a guy can be — and I tell this when I do my wrestling seminars, you’ve gotta be above average nowadays with the basics as far as in-ring ability. You don’t have to be great, and you don’t have to be spectacular. You’ve gotta have that as far as in-ring work, but you better be able to talk. And I mean, you have to have promo skills, and if you’re just average, it ain’t gonna work. And I think that was important 30 years ago, 20 years ago. It will be just as important 20 years from now, 30 years from now.

“He’s always been able to rap, talk. And so really, what he has always needed is the — to me, it’s the right opportunity at the right time. Because a lot of guys, we gave him an opportunity. Bbut when you kinda look at what we were trying to do, hammer down, and you’ve got so many different things going on. And look, we made him champ post-Slammiversary I think [was] the timing of it. But yes, so I can’t say I would’ve predicted it, but he’s a guy that needed the opportunity and the right time. I just think right now the timing is clicking for him because when you kinda look at the landscape, they’ve given him the microphone. That’s what he needed. He doesn’t need wrestling time in the ring, he needed mic time.”

On trying to get Mike Tenay for Slammiversary: “So Mike — and I don’t want people to read too much into this. Mike’s a good bud and I’ll leave it at this. He just wasn’t ready, didn’t feel it. And I totally respected it and it was a conversation… But Don West was back on board and in the swing of things. And Mike was, ‘Eh, I’m not feeling it.’”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit My World With Jeff Jarrett with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.