Jeff Jarrett Is Particularly Proud Of One Current Wrestling Promotion

Chris Jericho released a new episode of his Talk is Jericho podcast on Friday, and it features an interview with one of his AEW colleagues, someone who he previously worked alongside for brief periods in the WWF and WCW: Jeff Jarrett. As is often the case with the interviews Jericho conducts, the scope was fairly wide-ranging, with various parts of Jarrett's career covered, and as a result, the topics included what Jarrett considers one of his proudest achievements: Impact Wrestling, which he co-founded as NWA-TNA, still exists to this day.

"It's like a kid that you raised," Jarrett explained. "Not on the best speaking terms [since] 2017; I'll take the blame all the blame or as much blame as needed [for that]. I do have a lot of a sense of pride, from a professional point of view. Look, TBS and TNT are top five networks. We got on Spike. In the Viacom family, [it was] behind MTV and VH1, they were kind of a 'red-headed stepchild' if you will. I think we were a top 25 cable network? I'm not b**ching; we got really successful. It took us a lot longer than three years, but we were making six [to] eight million dollars a year [in] '07, '08, '09. So [we] really built that thing and got it kind of rock 'n' rollin'". 

Jarrett noted that despite that time frame being his greatest business success, it was contrasted by his personal life at the time due to the 2007 death of his wife, Jill, from breast cancer.

Jarrett then circled back to the larger topic of his up-and-down relationship with the company that he founded.

"It was something that, to this day, [I'm] very proud of," he said. "We got that thing rockin' and rollin', and then it became 'Oh, that looks easy,' and me and Dixie got sideways. Look, I'll take my responsibility, I didn't deal with everything perfectly. There's a lot of blame to go around, but those times were very good. And then in 2013, when me and Toby [Keith] couldn't buy controlling interest, I just knew the writing on the wall [was] that it wasn't sustainable in the current model, and that's when I resigned, and I left, and I gave Global Force [a try]. [...] They just had their 20th anniversary; yeah, it's cool! That library, from Flair, Hogan, Hardys...I'm so glad Anthem...that group got ahold of it with deep pockets...I'm super impressed that they're keepin' on keepin' on."

Jericho then asked Jarrett what kind of Nielsen ratings TNA was pulling in on Spike TV at the peak circa 2007-2009.

"We were doing about between 1.8 and two million viewers a week," Jarrett responded, albeit giving the caveat that it was a different time for TV viewership. "It was fantastic, but here's what I try to impress upon [people], whether it's Conrad [Thompson] on my podcast or others: We blew their network average away. The network average in prime time—and they had different content—the network averaged 800,000 [to] 900,000. So when we're doubling that every week, the value to the network was enormous. I think, had we kept on that charted course...who knows? I definitely think we would have gotten another hour on another night, maybe two hours. The trajectory was definitely that way."

Jarrett is currently signed to AEW, where he works as both onscreen talent and behind the scenes as Director of Business Development. He previously served as WWE's Senior Vice President of Live Events and, before that, as a producer and a member of the creative team.