Jeff Jarrett has explained the origin of the World X Cup in TNA.
During the latest edition of his “My World” podcast, the co-founder of TNA Wrestling commented on who came up with the World X Cup idea and why he decided to bring Eric Young to the roster.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On bringing in Eric Young to TNA: “If I had to give a subtitle of Eric, it’s that there was — And you know, I’m not a baseball team player if you will. But basketball, football, you have position players and all that. But I know baseball, they call them a utility player. But there’s nothing Eric — heel or babyface, opening match, main event, and everything between; he could be slotted in anywhere. And that is, to me, his biggest gift. There wasn’t a role or a position that Eric would receive and that he couldn’t succeed in. An incredible talent and very, very diverse in conveying his emotion.
“You know, Vince used to always say it’s in the eyes. Eric’s eyes could tell a story. You could look at his eyes on camera and know if he’s happy or sad. Can’t say enough cool things about [him]. But yeah, it all started from Scott D’Amore when I landed on, ‘Hey, I’m gonna have to get some type of an agent, a coach, a producer. But basically a right-hand man to help me in the early days of bell to bell, what’s gonna go down. Me and Scott landed on a situation, and Scott brought a lot of guys to the table. And there was other guys — you know, Jeremy Borash and others. But certainly Eric, that was his initial pipeline. And man oh man, am I grateful that he was willing to make the trips in the early days.”
On who came up with the World X Cup idea: “That would be me. Yeah, I was a big believer in — you know, we tried. We succeeded in some things, failed in others. But I wanted to give that X Division — going back to, ‘How are we different? How can we present things differently?’ And so when you put Team Mexico, Team Canada, Team USA, Team Japan; it gives whatever international flavor you can get. The Olympics is probably the easiest analogy that every four years, the world comes together and there are individuals that you’ve never heard of before. But since they’re from whatever country, you identify with them, and you connect with them and everything with that.
“And you know, ironically Team Canada — Jack Evans, Teddy Hart had floated around. Obviously, both of those guys probably had a little bit more indie cred, if you will. But things didn’t work out, they were booked elsewhere. And when we landed on these four guys; when I look back now, I knew they were good talent but my gosh. What a real nucleus of multi-dimensional [performers]. But you know, the early X Division — and you just showed a couple of pictures. Jerry Lynn, Chris Daniels, Bobby Roode, Eric Young, Team Mexico had AAA Stars, Team Japan. So just — it was diverse, and it set the X Division apart in programming. Because we could have singles and tags and eight-mans and six-mans, and different gimmick matches. But it elevated, in my opinion, the X Division because it highlighted just how athletic those guys are.”
