WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett, who is also All Elite Wrestling’s Director of Business Development, took to an episode of his “My World with Jeff Jarrett” podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including The Hardys (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) leaving IMPACT Wrestling in 2017 due to some issues with the company without even dropping the IMPACT World Tag Team Championships.
Jarrett said, “What a nightmare. And look, me and Matt have talked about this. The level of, I’ll just say it, the honesty. I was not given full clarity, although, at that time of my life, I assumed I had full clarity on who paid for what the contract said and what I’ll just call it the Hardys understanding was and Impact on understanding. I don’t want to say anthem wrestling has an Impact. I think they had an understanding that I obviously wasn’t. They’re not privy to it and didn’t understand it. And then editing and company enter and say, no, this is what our deal says from a legal perspective because that’s all I cared about. I’m like, what do we really have the rights for? And then I thought I could help things, and I definitely didn’t help. Things probably made things worse for me personally, but man, it was a mess because it was all in the ownership of the. The IP that was created, as well as the expenses that. That Matt and Jeff went through that either were never in burst or never agreed upon and being burst, and that’s where it got totally muddy. And it was a mess. I mean, it was a complete mess. I’m glad those days are behind me, but to defend Ed, I don’t really think and maybe it wasn’t his job, but I think, on the other hand, it was to do the due diligence on who really owes what. But Ed was so new to the business at the time. I don’t even think he knew the questions to ask, but he inherited the situation just like I did, and we knew we had to figure some kind of exit and then throw in the not even the wild card, throw in the strategic play that the Hardys. We’re going back to the WWE. They had no incentive. I don’t say play ball to move the ball down the court in the Impact Anthem wrestling exhibitions avenue anyway, so that in a lot of ways further, I don’t say complicated things, but that was further to the reality in, you know, in hindsight. Could we have all sat down and said, all right, Matt and Jeff are coming back regardless. Let’s just kind of move on. That might have helped, but I don’t think I can solve things. But Conrad, I’m trying to paint as good a picture as possible of Matt and Jeff Anthem wrestling exhibitions and myself. Back to our goal alignment. We really, really, really were never aligned and never were going to be in line when they made the decision to go back, and rightly so.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
