Jeff Jarrett has wowed the AEW fans in recent weeks with his matches against The Acclaimed – although wrestling won’t be his primary role moving forward.
The former WCW and NWA World Champion wrestled all over the United States, becoming a big star in the WWF, WCW and TNA (the latter of which he founded alongside his father Jerry). He also joined Bullet Club in NJPW, in one of the most bizarre things in wrestling, although it was merely a footnote in his legendary career.
He signed for AEW late in 2022, making his debut for the company at Full Gear 2022. He teamed with Jay Lethal in a battle against WCW rival Sting and his partner Darby Allin, in a match which was the surprise hit of the night. Despite being 55 years of age, he still wrestles well for his age and still has a lot to add in the ring – as he proved in his feud with The Acclaimed (which produced this incredible diss track on Jarrett).
However, he wasn’t brought into the company primarily for his wrestling skills. Instead, Tony Khan wanted him for his skills he developed in TNA, namely booking and the live event business. Currently AEW is purely a TV product, not running any house shows outside one or two shows in their history before the global pandemic. His job is also to bring AEW to new markets, something which has been apparent since his signing this November.
On the latest episode of “Talk Is Jericho“, Jeff Jarrett spoke about signing for AEW to help bolster the live event industry within the company. It is his job to help plan out future live events, or “house shows” as well as to introduce the company to new, unexplored areas and stop relying on repeated markets with diminishing returns.
“The live event industry, which is one of the hats I’m wearing, we’ll call it house shows. It’s not a four letter word around here, which I love. The house show business, I’ll call them the non-televised live events, I think that’s the proper terminology that I use when I’m talking to different promoters. I say, ‘Hey, these are non televised.’ ‘Oh, I got it.’ That’s it right up at the forefront.”
“So now getting into the non televised events, I want to be real careful that we strategically help with the guidance on getting, we call C and D markets, but candidly, markets that Dynamite is not going to go to.”
“Once you get outside the United States, the AEW brand, believe it or not, is on par with WWE. I said, ‘I need numbers in Canada.’ So anyway, they came along and man, it’s fantastic. The growth internationally is super exciting.”
“It’s very obvious. The focus has been on the television product, and when you really look at the strength of the brand, and I know from the quick due diligence I did, you know we have been to repeat markets already. I know even with the pandemic, we’ve been to repeat markets. So there’s a lot of new markets we’re going to in 2023, which is just such an understated value point that oh, you’ve never been to Laredo. Oh, you’ve never been to El Paso. Oh, wait, you’re going to Seattle, Seattle is a major market.”
“I think 2023, I can already see the surge that, and that’s just, let’s say, spreading our wings a little bit more because the focus has been on that Wednesday Night Dynamite in 20 markets or 30 markets. Growth is going to be an understatement, I believe.”
Jeff Jarrett will team up with Jay Lethal to battle The Acclaimed for the AEW Tag Team Championships at Battle for the Belt V.