Jeff Jarrett Says He Didn’t Hold Up WWE Before Departure

In an interview with The Ric Flair Show, Jeff Jarrett spoke about his departure from WWE and the rumors that he held them up for more money before losing the Intercontinental title to Chyna. Here are highlights:

On Goldberg vs. Lesnar: “The big buzz is the whole Goldberg/Lesnar situation. I think that was a piece of work. I think it was done magically. If they’d’ve gone 8 or 10 minutes, everybody would’ve the rifles out, but wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Holy crap! And to me, Brock just, as they said in the old days, ‘he just backed up to the Brinks truck for a rematch.'”

On his WWE departure: “All the issue of I held Vince up, who in their right mind would believe that? Honestly. At that time, pay-per-views were monthly and you get paid about every 90 days. We had done a pay-per-view over in England, so I had about four or five pay-per-view payoffs coming. Obviously, Cleveland [Ohio] that night was coming. And then, I don’t know, five, six, seven. house show runs, whatever the checks I haven’t been paid for. And I thought it was going to be real simple because I think Jim Ross didn’t have a real happy day because of how all of that went down, that Vince McMahon, and to defend Ross and sort of defend the situation, Vince was traveling legitimately around the world, nonstop, because was taking his company public, and, so, when you take a company [public], IPOs and all that, you’ve got to go meet with all these investment bankers and presentations. So Vince didn’t have his thumb on all the pulses, that was Jim’s job, obviously, Jim and creative, and all that. So it sort of created a perfect storm or perfect situation, so I was working and doing the honors and never had any intention of not doing it.

I knew once I walked out of that building that night, for all my payoffs of the last three or four months, I had zero leverage. And the guy who, Vince may sign off on it, but the guy who comes up with that number was J.R. and J.R. was in a unique situation, so I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. I wanted to agree on a number and that’s what we did. And I got my money that night and Vince, I can assure you this [and] Ric can attest to this: if Vince McMahon did not want to pay me, what in the hell was I going to do? He gladly paid me and did not hesitate.”