In the culmination of one of the “craziest years” of his wrestling career, Jeff Jarrett made his All Elite Wrestling debut on the November 2nd, 2022 edition of Dynamite, laying Darby Allin out with a guitar shot to the head.
The previous 12 months had seen the veteran take and then leave the position of WWE’s Senior Vice President of Live Events, make appearances in GCW, AAA, the NWA, and take part in Ric Flair’s last-ever pro wrestling match.
During a recent appearance on AEW Unrestricted, Jarrett looked back on his “bizarre” year.
“You know, that kind of is actually a good question and I have yet to even roll out the entire thing, even on my own podcast because timing is everything. Things just happen for a reason.
“So I’ll go back into the fall of 2021, when I kind of made up my mind that ‘You know what, I’ve always been in decent shape. I’m gonna go get in the best shape that I can.’ A little thing happened called GCW Wrestling at the Hammerstein Ballroom, that kind of happened. Then, special referee in NWA and then I got that summer internship at the competition and went to working on live events in WWE.
“I almost committed a murder and killed Ric Flair, I almost murdered him. Look, charges weren’t pressed but anyway. SummerSlam happened and then all of the sudden you kind of wake up and I’m on the free agent market. Literally, 2022 was one of the craziest years I’ve ever had… I started in 1986. It was just kind of a bizarre year all the way around.
Jeff Jarrett has been following AEW since the beginning
The King of the Mountain went on to explain that he has been watching AEW since episode one, and when he saw Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, and Satnam Singh working together, it seemed like a natural fit.
“Sitting back and kind of… look, I’ve watched AEW from episode one, I don’t care. I’m a wrestling junkie. I don’t care if it’s YouTube or a streaming service, whatever it may be. I’ve watched more live wrestling than I believe anybody my age just because I’ve had the opportunity to be at so many shows and watch some live. I just love it.
“I love it more today than I ever have, but as things rolled along in 2022, I’m watching the AEW program and [seeing] the guy I was just in a tag match with at Ric Flair’s Last Match, Jay Lethal. Sonjay Dutt, we go back twenty-something years. Satnam Singh from India, I’m a basketball junkie but also know the Indian market pretty well. I just kind of saw those individuals and I kid you not, when I just kind of looked and went ‘In a lot of ways, this is a natural fit.’
“When I tell you that the pieces of the puzzle, I don’t wanna get into divine intervention or anything like that, but you just can’t write it. You cannot write the opportunity that was right in front of everyone. Hats off to the powers that be so to speak, they kind of saw that opportunity.
“When I showed up on Dynamite and gave Darby [Allin] a little attitude adjustment, things were off to the races. Literally from the first week of November, I feel like I’ve just got here in some ways and in other ways, I feel like I’ve been in the AEW machine for a lot more than five months.”
H/T to Fightful for the above transcription.