WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett, who is currently the Director of Business Development for All Elite Wrestling (AEW), recently appeared on an episode of his podcast, “My World with Jeff Jarrett.” During the episode, he covered several topics, including the creative control that fellow WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan had while working in TNA.
Jarrett said, “Hulk Hogan had creative control, folks. I’m paraphrasing [a report], ‘creative has been told to put Hulk on every show.’ Well, Hulk Hogan had creative control, folks. The manipulation that guy did to Dixie Carter and Dixie, she has to take full responsibility. She didn’t know what she was signing up for, but the results speak for it all. Yes, he put himself on every show. It’s a bunch of crap if you say anything different. He had creative control, and he would be on the shows when he wanted to be on the shows. End of story.”
On being hot about it:
“I don’t want this to be about Dave [Meltzer] and his reporting, but I’ll just say wrestling judder is in reporting. The fact that he said creative has been told to write him on every show. That whole line is a bunch of crap. I mean, Hulk had creative control. Hulk was there to make as much money as possible, just like when he worked for Jerry Jarrett or Vern Gagne or Vince McMahon or New Japan Pro Wrestling or whatever it may be. That is the. End goal of a professional wrestler, maybe not this generation, but in that modern, I mean, in that 80s, 90s, I don’t know when it kind of got clouded, but that was the goal. He had gotten himself, rightly so, the biggest box office attraction this business had ever seen. And when they made the call and made the decision to come on board, and he wrote creative control in there, at the end of the day, and I told Bob [Carter] this about a year and a half into it, I said when the contract was signed, it was checkmate. You guys just didn’t know. That’s the reality. That is the absolute reality.”
On TNA’s death spiral:
“And you look at the history and how the hell did TNA go into that death spiral? Well, for starters, Hogan had creative control. For starters, Hogan wanted to run the wrestling business and had never run a promotion in his life. Let’s take the show on the road. Let’s move out of Orlando studios. Let’s hire this guy. Let’s hire that guy. It was a calamity of decisions that ran it in the ground.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
