Jeff Jarrett On Vince Russo Pushing Him As Top Star When He Left WWE For WCW, Idea Behind ‘Slapnuts’ Phrase

On a recent edition of My World with Jeff Jarrett, Jeff Jarrett discussed Vince Russo pushing him as a top star when he left WWE for WCW in 1999, the idea behind using “Slapnuts” phrase in WCW, and much more. You can read his comments below. 

Jeff Jarrett on Vince Russo pushing him as a top star when he left WWE for WCW in 1999 and whether Russo thought he was easier to work with than other WCW stars: “We’re sitting here in 2021, and hindsight is without question 20/20, but when you look at the reality of the situation, Vince was writing for the WWF Magazine in 1993 or 1994. He became a writer and worked his way up the ranks. At the end of the day, the real context was, he knew that he answered to Vince [McMahon] and only Vince. He had a falling out and he went to WCW. He had never worked in an environment where he could at least go and argue his point to Vince McMahon and then Vince would make the decision. Now it was, Bill Bush was his boss, and with Bill and Vince [McMahon], there’s no comparison. The short answer is yes. He knew that Jeff Jarrett, the talent, would make suggestions, add, subtract, try to make it better, and at the end of the day, I’m going to run the play. He walked into a situation, and Hulk Hogan, going back to his whole lineage, we’ll call it that, AWA, WWF, WWWF, all of that. You can go all the way down the list. He was walking into a scenario with that group and everybody else that did not have that working relationship. Vince Russo and his Long Island accent coming into WCW, he had never worked with Hulk. He had never worked with Bill Goldberg. He had never really worked with Hall and Nash in this manner. He was a whole new ball game. So, yes to your answer is that, when he looked down his roster of folks, ‘At least I kind of know Jeff and he’ll play ball with my story.’”

On the idea behind using “Slapnuts” phrase in WCW: “The whole sort of buzz going around, and again, whole different era than we’re currently in in so many different ways. Catchphrases – Rock would have a new one every week and other guys like Mick Foley. It was just a buzz of different sayings and catchphrases. Moving on from the Chyna storyline and getting into ‘The Chosen One’ and all that, just that word “slappy” kind of fit. Me wanting to make it kind of Attitude Era and a slappy is a term my grandmother used – somebody slaps their gums together that knows more and more about less and less every day as she used to say. We’ll call it, candidly, a BS artist. It was all built out of the Chosen One character and some way to start a promo, and again, a catchphrase that will grab people’s attention and can be marketed.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit My World with Jeff Jarrett with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.