WWE Hall of Famer, Jeff Jarrett commented on his dealings with fellow WWE Hall of Famer Randy Savage in TNA back in 2004, during the early years of TNA.
In a recent episode of his “My World with Jeff Jarrett” podcast, Jarrett spoke about the difficulties he and his father Jerry Jarrett had when trying to bring Randy into their promotion.
In these early TNA years, we knew we needed a couple of brand ambassadors. My dad (Jerry Jarrett) asked me ‘Do you want me to reach out to Randy?’ and I said ‘Yeah’, but the first conversations with him were disheartening because Randy just wasn’t the same guy.
Randy had originally worked for Jeff’s father Jerry Jarrett in the early to mid 80s in Memphis before later finding super stardom in WWE and later WCW before taking a break from wrestling to pursue other careers such as a role in the 2002 “Spider-Man” movie and creating his own rap album “Be A Man”. But the discussions to get Randy back into wrestling proved to be tough for the Jarretts.
From the very beginning, conversations were like ‘Hey Randy, we want you a part of the product’. That’s not to say he would wrestle every month… (Randy) has to tell us what he wants to do. And he just wasn’t really sure where we were gonna go, where the brand was gonna go, the ups and downs with Randy, how much money was involved and as we continued those negotiations, they would get hot, get cold, get hot, get cold – just like with Hulk Hogan.
Randy did have a very brief stint in TNA at the very end of 2004, making no more than a few appearances around the same time discussions were made with Hulk Hogan to bring him on board with TNA, during one of Hogan’s hiatuses from WWE.
We never wanted to press Randy and say here’s the deal, here’s what we want you to do, you tell us how we can collaborate. Those were the conversations all the way throughout the whole deal. Randy was not the same Randy that we (me and my father) had dealt with over the last 20 years.
Randy Savage’s appearance at TNA Turning Point in December 2004, teaming with Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles to face Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash would turn out to be his final involvement with a pro wrestling company before his untimely death in May 2011.
The WWE Hall Of Famer Jeff Jarrett Says Is A “Flawed Human Being”
In another recent episode of his “My World” podcast, Jeff Jarrett discussed who he would have on his Mount Rushmore of pro wrestlers and affirmed Jerry “The King” Lawler would definitely be on it, despite the ups and downs and problems in Jerry’s career over the years.
H/t to TJRWrestling.net