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WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett departed his position as Senior Vice President of Live Events with World Wrestling Entertainment last week, PWInsider.com has exclusively confirmed with multiple sources. The belief among some is he finished his official duties this past Friday, but I can't 100% confirm that timeline.
In January 2019, Jarrett was brought in by WWE to work as a Producer, then shifted over to the company's creative team in March of that year. He quickly parlayed his role into an executive role on the live events side. When WWE's live events went on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jarrett quietly exited the company, although he never publicly acknowledged it. Jarrett returned to the company in May of this years with a source at the time describing it as Jarrett "taking over live events."
With the changes from the Vince McMahon regime to the current one headed by Nick Khan, Paul Levesque and Stephanie McMahon, one has to wonder if there was a cause and effect here, but nothing has been confirmed to PWInsider.com as of this writing beyond that Jarrett "departed" WWE.
Over the last several years, Jarrett has launched an excellent podcast with Conrad Thompson (where I would expect Jarrett to address this first before anywhere else) and become part of the ownership group of Minor League Baseball team The Springfield Lucky Horseshoes in Illinois, which brought in a number of wrestling personalities over the course of their season this year. Jarrett also had what was absolutely the top heel work of the year in his part of Ric Flair's Last Match several weeks ago in Nashville, the night after he appeared as a guest referee at Summerslam:
A third-generation professional wrestler and promoter, Jarrett initially broke into the business under his father and Jerry Lawler’s Memphis wrestling territory, where he worked as a babyface, feuding with the likes of The Moondogs, Jerry Lawler and Eric Embry among others. His feud with Embry for the World Class Light Heavyweight Championship gave him his first national exposure and his PPV debut at the AWA Superclash III event.
Jarrett was brought up to the WWF as “Double J” Jeff Jarrett, a purported country singing sensation who had come to the WWF to become the biggest star in wrestling. He had several runs with the Intercontinental Championship and was one of the top heels in the company, although he was never one of the definitive top villains. He worked house show main events and feuded with Chyna, Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon, among others and helped introduce The Road Dogg to WWF TV as his “Roadie.” Perhaps the most memorable part of that run beyond his work in the ring was the now-immortal “Being with My Baby Tonight” theme song, which Jarrett and Road Dogg sang during Jarrett’s WWE Hall of Fame induction. Jarrett also teamed with the late Owen Hart in what was a really entertaining tag team.
Jarrett also had several dalliances with WCW. The first saw him become a member of the Four Horsemen. The second saw Jarrett have several WCW World title runs towards the final years of the promotion. When WWF purchased WCW and shut it down in 2001, Jarrett found himself on the outs, likely due to his second and final exit from WWF. With his WWF contract having already expired and a WCW deal on the table, Jarrett, the reigning Intercontinental Champion, wasn’t willing to step into the ring and drop the belt to Chyna until he had been wired all money that would have been owed to him. WWF, at the time, paid PPV bonuses several months later, but Jarrett asked for it all up front. They finally agreed and once Jarrett had confirmed the money was wired to his bank account, he went on to have an entertaining “Good Housekeeping” brawl with Chyna, putting over the only female Intercontinental Champion in WWE history.
While relations with WWE would obviously thaw out, at that point, Jarrett was left on the outside after WCW imploded. A boating trip with Bob Ryder and Jeff's father Jerry led to a brainstorming session, leading to the Jarretts founding TNA (now Impact Wrestling) in 2002 with plans of running a weekly promotion with its TV series airing specifically as PPV. When that initial concept didn't work (and initial investor HealthSouth pulled out), the majority ownership of the company was sold to Panda Energy. Jerry Jarrett was later bought out of his ownership by Panda as well.
Jarrett was the early top star for the promotion, working as the heel everything was built around, becoming a six-time NWA Champion. Jarrett was heavily involved in all facets of the company, which at times left him open to criticism of how much he was featured. Jarrett would always privately state that when someone else who could handle that role came into the company, he would back off. That turned out to be true several years later when Kurt Angle came into the company and quickly became one of the top TNA attractions.
Jarrett remained on camera as an important part of storylines but began focusing more on his behind the scenes duties. With the exception of a time period where Jarrett took time off from the company out of respect due to then-personal issues between Kurt Angle and his ex-wife Karen (who Jarrett had begun dating and later married), Jarrett remained one of the main cogs in the TNA machine and was heavily involved in developing new TNA programming, such as Ring Ka King for Endemol in India and the All Wheels Wrestling TV pilot that meshed pro wrestling and car racing.
Jarrett resigned from TNA in late 2013 and formed Global Force Wrestling in April 2014. Although he forged a relationship with American Ninja Warrior producers A. Smith & Company and filmed 16 episodes of a potential series GFW Amped! Jarrett was unable to find a TV home for the project. While he ran a number of live events, the GFW journey was a slow growth.
Jarrett was brought back to TNA and placed in their Hall of Fame after being approached by Dixie Carter with a deal that would see her buy out his minority ownership in the company as well as give his GFW TV time. Jarrett privately told several he was close with that he couldn’t believe such a great offer had been handed to him and he would have been crazy not to take it.
As it turned out, Carter would eventually lose control of the company to Anthem Media after they called in debts she had incurred to them. Anthem took over ownership and production of Impact and brought Jarrett in, originally as a consultant, and then to become Chief Creative Officer. Jarrett’s approach appeared to be to burn down anything he could that could be connected to Impact during the time he was away, even changing the company name to GFW. When personal issues led to the company dismissing him, the GFW name was dropped and changed back to Impact. Jarrett became embroiled in a lawsuit over the company’s use of the GFW name and footage, which went to trial, only to be declared a mistrial, which then opened the door for the two sides to confidentially settle the lawsuit. After addressing his personal issues, Jarrett was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, opening the door to Jarrett's return to the company and now, his top flight position in the live events department.
In recent months before his WWE return, Jarrett and his wife Karen had returned to AAA in Mexico in major heel roles. Jarrett had also started a storyline with Game Changer Wrestling's Effy leading into the company's first PPV earlier this year at the Hammerstein Ballroom, defeating him in what had been Jarrett's first match since 2019. The idea had been to build to a rematch, which one would think could be very much back in play, as could a return to AAA. Given his excellent work as part of Flair's Last Match, one would think a ton of independent wrestling offers will be pouring in.
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