Jeff Jarrett discussed his contract offer from WCW and his father getting involved with contract talks with WWF in 1997 on a recent edition of My World. Here are some of the highlights:
Why he didn’t like WCW’s contract offer:
“I didn’t even fault Eric or Hogan, you know, because they were running the show. Certainly not Kevin Sullivan. It was the Flair thing that had some serious juice behind it. The Four Horsemen deal, that got traction but nothing like I think we all had kind of, I don’t want to say hope, but.. for me and Kevin Sullivan I’ll go on that. I think Kevin Sullivan had high hopes for it, I certainly had high hopes for it. I’ll stop there because I never got the sense, you know, Ric had and look you just kind of got into it he had his own agenda and rightly so. It was more creative, but my creative or lack thereof didn’t incentivize Eric to say ‘hey, we got to hold onto this guy.’ We had a great working relationship, very professional. I think he respected my work, but he knew the NWO and everything attached to it that was what was moving the needle and probably more importantly to the situation, I knew that. So I knew that, again, corporate versus one-man running the show it’s just night and day you know. The older I get and the more miles I put on and the more wrestling I’m around it just comes down it’s truly that simple. Look at the NFL, coaching can change the culture and if you just don’t have that tip-top leader there’s issues. It’s just that simple there’s issues.”
His father being involved in contract talks:
“Well look, live and learn. So, I can’t say I regret it because at the time I was doing what I thought was the very best. In hindsight, because I kind of touched on it, we knew he wasn’t my agent because agents defer to talent to their client. I’m not going to tell my dad what to do. That just that relationship, you know, that almost demeans him. Did I want him to advise me maybe guide me, well the nature of the beast of his entrepreneur spirit is if you ask him for guidance what he hears is ‘I’m going to run the show’. So, there was kind of a balance there. I’m not saying he took off and run the show, but it wasn’t agent client role it was a advisor, but that advisor had twenty plus more years than I had in the business. So, that was kind of the situation, but to kind of run this whole thing parallel. Vince is the boss, JR’s running talent relations. Vince Russo is leading creative or lead writer, I don’t know what they call the department back then so I had a conversation with Russo or conversations. My dad had conversations with Vince. I had a conversation with Vince in his office and we setup a meeting to go up to Stamford to meet at Vince’s house. To say my dad was an agent probably doesn’t do him or the story justice.”
Quotes via 411 Mania