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Back in 2010, I decided to write an unauthorized retrospective/e-book on TNA Wrestling. Writing it was never about the money, I did it to try to tell TNA’s early story from an unbiased perspective, especially with many internet websites trashing TNA and trying to push agendas. I also did it as an exercise in writing to prepare for future projects. This was my first crack at long form writing, at the age of 18 years old.

The retrospective is an oral history, featuring quotes from a handful of former TNA talent and backstage personnel from interviews I conducted in 2010-2011. None of the talent were main event guys, as I didn’t expect any current TNA talent at the time to really get candid about the company or jeopardize their spots. I had interviewed many top level TNA guys though in the mid 2000′s on my podcast BWR, which helped me formulate some of the narrative. I may post quotes from those interviews in the future on AlternativeNation.net to tell some other stories about TNA’s past.

I originally published this online in 2012, but I thought I would republish it here with all of the rumors flying around about TNA for some perspective. I’ve been a loyal TNA fan since 2003, and have always rooted for the company and everyone working there to find success. So if there’s any snark mixed in here, none of it is intended to be mean spirited. Many of the opinions in here of that of the people I spoke too. All photos are the property of TNA, and for anybody reading this who is no longer following TNA, definitely check out Impact Wrestling every Thursday night at 9PM on SpikeTV. You can read the results and rate every match/segment from Thursday’s Impact on Everater.

Here is The Genesis of TNA in its entirety, covering TNA’s history from 2002-2010. This retrospective is in memory of Chris Candido, Randy Savage, and Jill Jarrett, and dedicated to everybody who has ever worked for TNA.  If there are any factual errors, feel free to comment.  I had no editor! I also apologize for not bolding everybody’s names. Too time consuming.

CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGINS OF TNA

The story of TNA Wrestling begins with the demise of World Championship Wrestling. In March 2001 a new Turner television executive named Jamie Kellner cancelled all WCW programming from TNT and TBS. This caused negotiations with former WCW President Eric Bischoff and Fusient Media Ventures to purchase WCW from AOL Time Warner to fall through. Vince McMahon and the WWF quickly jumped in and purchased WCW. On the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro; which included simulcast segments with WWF RAW is WAR, the show kicked off with Vince McMahon announcing that he had bought his competition. He was shown looking at two televisions that featured the WWF and WCW shows respectively. On the WCW screen was Jeff Jarrett. McMahon then proceeded to publically fire Jarrett. Jarrett had previously worked for the WWF but when his contract ran out in 1999 he decided to leave for WCW. He still held the WWF Intercontinental Championship and had a PPV match scheduled with Chyna for the title. Jarrett and the WWF had a disagreement over pay and Jarrett ended up being paid a large sum of money to drop the title to Chyna that night. Jeff Jarrett claims that the WWF owed him the money he ended up getting from them that night, while WWF officials saw Jeff’s actions as greedy and unprofessional. This incident led to McMahon deciding to not to rehire Jarrett in 2001, and humiliating him on the final Nitro.

With WCW gone, Vince McMahon had successfully monopolized professional wrestling. Television networks wouldn’t touch pro wrestling with a ten foot pole. If the Turner networks canceled WCW Nitro, which despite its dwindling ratings was still one of TNT’s highest rated shows, why should they bring a new wrestling show to their network? There was a short lived promotion in 2001 called the XWF that attempted to fill the void of WCW, but after their pilot television tapings they couldn’t secure a TV deal and many of their big names like Jerry Lawler and Curt Hennig left for the WWF. During all of this time Jeff Jarrett wondered about his future, and eventually decided that he wanted to start his own national wrestling promotion. Jarrett and his father Jerry, a veteran wrestling promoter; put plans in motion to start Total Nonstop Action Wrestling as a weekly PPV wrestling series.

SCOTT HUDSON: TNA began out of the ruble left by the collapse of WCW. When WCW went under we had that brief little run with the WWF and the Invasion angle and then that went nowhere so there was nothing left. During the dying days of WCW, Jerry Jarrett had been one of the less than a handful of potential buyers. When that didn’t pan out obviously, he put whatever resources he had together, got his investors lined up, and he was going to start the company. Obviously I stayed very tight with a lot of the guys from WCW especially Jeff Jarrett and Vince Russo. Jeff lived in Nashville and I had some friends in Nashville I was doing indies in Nashville just for the hell of it with Bert Prentice who I knew from WCW, and Vince lived like 2 miles from me in Atlanta. When they started this I would go visit with Vince and just socialize and he told me about the idea that Jeff and Jerry had for the company. This was in the very early days, before it even got off the ground. So I had knowledge of it from the very beginning.

BILL BEHRENS: The idea was very basic and that was that when WCW went out of business that there was a disenfranchised wrestling audience anywhere between 4 to 6 million people that vanished, literally just went away. They didn’t go to WWE they just didn’t go to any other wrestling program. So the assumption was if we give them the stars that they would potentially have missed seeing, and then we go even further than that and we put together a PPV package that for in essence 8 hours of program at least a month, is delivered for the same price as one 3 hour WWE PPV once a month. That we’re providing a good product that people should be interested in. The reality is that didn’t work.

JONNY FAIRPLAY: I didn’t think it [Weekly PPVs] was going to work before I went to TNA, from everything I was told at the time they were working towards television. So with that I thought they’re obviously spending money on something, so let’s hope for the best.

CASSIDY RILEY: As far as the concept of the weekly PPV, I thought it was a good idea. It was different, nobody was doing that. Anything that could put another show on the market in the wrestling business, I thought it was a good idea. Anything to offer competition because there was none out there, it seemed like business in general was really in a slump, so I thought it could only help if we could just get people to find out about it.

SCOTT HUDSON: I remember talking to Vince Russo [about the weekly PPV idea], the way you market it is you pay 40 bucks per month to get TNA and you get 8 hours of PPV quality broadcast. Where if you pay 40 bucks to the WWF you get 3 hours of PPV quality broadcast. We talked about that and the PPV companies wouldn’t let them sell it based on the cheap price, they didn’t like the idea of marketing it as a cheap PPV because there are a lot of those out there. Not necessarily wrestling but a lot of cheap PPVs and they didn’t want to be seen as bragging about how cheap their product was so they didn’t do that. That’s the kind of stuff Vince and I talked about, not like who we’re going to push and who is going to go over and be champion or anything like that.

DAVID YOUNG: When it first started I honestly didn’t think it would succeed. When it first started I honestly thought it was going to last three to four weeks and then it was going to be gone.

SCOTT HUDSON: I thought [the weekly PPV concept] was a terrific idea. It did succeed to a degree; they reached a point business wise that they could never break through. I attribute that more to the quality of the product more than the business model in that it wasn’t that they could never break through because they were doing a weekly PPV it was they couldn’t break through because the PPV to me just wasn’t that good, or good enough to do better, but it was good enough. Before they ended up scuttling that idea and going to weekly stripped syndication and monthly PPVs, it had become marginally profitable, but it would have taken a long time to recoup what they had lost over the first couple of years. But they had gotten it to where the buy rates were at a sustainable level to make it profitable on a week to week basis. Again a lot of that profit would have been going back to recouping that loss that they had incurred, but they would have recouped it by now obviously if they had kept it going.

RUDY CHARLES: From what I understand is it was Bob Ryder, Jeremy Borash, Jeff Jarrett, and maybe Ron Harris sitting out on a lake one day after the demise of WCW. I don’t think WWF was going to hire Jeff, so they were trying to figure out a way to come up with a viable competition. They were kicking around some ideas and I don’t know which one of them came up with the idea for a weekly PPV, but it was kind of on that boat from my understanding is where idea sprang from. It was probably the summer of 2001 or so, the summer of relaxation or something they called it, they were still getting paid by WCW then but they weren’t working the WWF wasn’t using them. They were looking for something so that when their no compete ran up they could do something. Then from that idea they kind of sprang the idea of doing something, I’m not sure if it was there that they came up with the idea for the weekly PPVs or where that came from, but it was something that had never been done before. It was maybe based on the old Memphis philosophy their biggest show of the week was always Monday in Memphis. They had their towns that they toured every week too, but it was kind of a big deal for all of the fans to go to the shows in Memphis. They thought if they could kind of get people in the habit of buying those PPVs every Wednesday, kind of make it a wrestling night because there wasn’t any wrestling on Wednesday at the time.

In the months leading up to TNA’s first show on June 19th in Huntsville the talent roster was a major issue. The Jarretts knew they needed some star power to sell PPVs and they had discussions with the Ultimate Warrior, Scott Steiner, Sting, Randy Savage, and Mick Foley that ultimately went nowhere. TNA were able to sign Ken Shamrock, Scott Hall, Brian “Grandmaster Sexay” Lawler, Buff Bagwell, and others. The concept of TNA was not to solely focus on these former WWF and WCW stars, but it was to expose the audience to the stars of the future. Jerry and Jeff Jarrett scouted independent wrestling shows to find their new talent.

SCOTT HUDSON: I was working a show for Bert Prentice at the Fairgrounds and it was the Last Battle of Nashville or whatever they called it, but it was Chris Harris and James Storm wrestling each other on top. We’d built it up and built it up on TV and over the last few weeks of the house shows to where he brought me and Jim Cornette in, we were the announce team for the TV there in Nashville, and he brought us in to do live to tape commentary for the show. Bert told me that afternoon that the TNA guys were coming. They were about to launch and get everything up and running and they were going to be there to look at the talent and see who was any good and all that. I remember talking to Jeff and Jerry and they said who is good who should we keep an eye out for. I said well everybody on the show is good, but the main event is really going to knock you apart because those guys Harris and Storm are both just incredible. They go okay great you know I’ve heard that from everybody, so everybody who talked to Jeff and Jerry had said Harris and Storm, Harris and Storm not just me. So I went back to Harris and Storm and said look, me and everybody else have blown more sunshine up your skirt today to these TNA guys than you’ve ever thought about. So if you’ve got anything at all, you need to break out and do it tonight, and they did. That match, I’m sure there’s a tape of that match somewhere of me and Corny calling Harris and Storm in their last match before they started with TNA. That match was a mindblower, and seeing how those two guys blossomed was just a wonderful experience because I knew them then. To see what happened to Chris is kind of disappointing, of the two I would have thought Chris would have been the bigger star just because of his look. Storm was actually in my opinion the better worker, but it doesn’t always come down to that as you know.

BILL BEHRENS: There were a series of matches that occurred up in Nashville at two shows being run by Bert Prentice that Jerry Jarrett watched that was one [Chris Harris vs. James Storm] of them and the other one was David Young vs. AJ Styles. The first two people that were relatively hired were AJ Styles and David Young, unless you count Jeff Jarrett. Out of the match they saw and the match they did in Nashville was basically a version of a match they had done for NWA Wildside that we literally just took up there and redid for Jerry. Then immediately after that an awful lot of us including AJ, myself, Jeff, Scott Steiner, and various folk we ended up all going on an Australian tour and it was there that AJ was actually signed. Because of my involvement with the NWA, at the time I was the vice president of that organization, Jerry had asked the question do you think the NWA would be interested in sanctioning TNA. I said I don’t see any reason why not, it sounds like a good idea. We structured the initial one year deal out of those conversations that had the NWA brand attached to TNA for give or take its first 4 to 5 years.

CASSIDY RILEY: I had been working in Nashville for several years for Bert Prentice. After WCW went under, or Vince bought it out, there were rumors for awhile that Jeff was going to try to put something together. So Bert Prentice was running the Nashville Fairgrounds on a weekly basis, so when everything kind of started getting rolling they started looking for talent. Jerry Jarrett and some other guys like Ed Ferrara would come down to the Fairgrounds where Bert Prentice was running his weekly shows and scout talent. That was where after Mr. Jerry saw me work, the first time he didn’t really have a lot to say. Then after the second week he came up to me and I was tagging with Chase Stevens and he’s like I really like you guys, I think I have something for you. So that’s how it all kind of came about originally.

LARRY ZBYZSKO: When TNA first started I had no idea whether they would survive or not. I was real happy that someone started something else because at the end of the 90’s wrestling was so hot with WCW and the wars and I was real excited hoping that another outfit would start. Not only was it something for me to do, it was something for all of the young talent. And the fans would have an option, because I do not like the McMahon thing I don’t watch it and if that’s the only game in town then that’s what you get. So I was real happy when they started hoping they’d do good and kind of an interesting story how they even stayed around.

BILL BEHRENS: There were a lot of mistakes in terms of the business and financial plan realities. It became painfully obvious very early that we that were not going to sell tickets. In fact, hundreds and not a lot of hundreds, of tickets were sold to that first event in Huntsville and basically it had to be given away. It was obvious that financially we had a problem going in.

Despite financial problems and talent concerns TNA soldiered on and on June 19, 2002, they ran their very first weekly PPV in Huntsville, Alabama. The show was headlined by a 20 Man Gauntlet for the Gold to crown a new NWA World Champion. The battle royal featured many names like Jeff Jarrett, Ken Shamrock, Scott Hall, Malice (The Wall in WCW), Buff Bagwell, and others. Ken Shamrock ultimately won and became the NWA World Champion. Dan Severn was actually the NWA Champion at the time but he had prior commitments the night of TNA’s first show. Severn was willing to wrestle but Shamrock had heat with him from their past in the Mixed Martial Arts world, and he refused to work with him which led to the need to crown a new champion. Country musician Toby Keith also appeared on the show, helping Scott Hall eliminate Jeff Jarrett from the Gauntlet for the Gold.

DAVID YOUNG: At that time [the first TNA PPV] was the biggest thing I had ever done in my life. For the fact that it was a packed arena and I had never done a PPV before so it was really big to me.

RUDY CHARLES: For me I was a nobody, I was there as an extra referee. Just to see all of these guys, I’ve been watching them on TV all of these years, some of them I’d worked with but a lot of them I hadn’t and I was meeting for the first time. I was just kind of a fly on the wall and observing everything that’s going on. I thought the PPV itself came off pretty good. It’s kind of infamous now, the problems they had at the very start, they had the preshow match where Cheex who is a big dude broke the ring and they had to scramble before the show started. The legends segment was scheduled to go on after the first match, and they had to move that to before the first match. I think if you look back at the DVD of that you can see some of the people working on the ring while they were honoring the legends.

BILL BEHRENS: There was a lot of pyro and it was a very good show, the very first taping that yielded two programs out of Huntsville was very well done. There was nothing wrong with anything we did there, and the fact the ring broke was an anomaly that creates a lovely story.

DAVID YOUNG: I broke the ring, it was chaotic, it was my match that the ring broke in, me and Apollo.

BILL BEHRENS: Because It happened when big guy Cheex was put in there and that was very entertaining. But that really wasn’t that typical of the night, everything was fairly organized, the only difficulties we really had were getting people into the go area it was sort of makeshift. There were some things that had been booked that Dutch Mantell and I who were in the go area weren’t aware of. We didn’t know that Toby Keith was supposed to run out and do the suplex spot and they’re going when do I go when do I go, and we’re going I don’t know that you’re supposed to go. We were trying to get direction from the production truck and the truck didn’t know. There were some minor communication issues but that happened fairly regularly during my experience with TNA and it continued when we went into the Fairgrounds when we started having weekly surprises and nobody was really told about the surprises.

CASSIDY RILEY: I was actually on the second taping, the vibe was good. It really had, and so many people compare it to WCW, but it really had kind of a WCW feel without all the animosity. I think at that time everybody who was there knew that it was either going to sink or swim, and if it sank none of us were going to have work. So everybody was trying to put their butts to the floor, and there were young guys like myself and America’s Most Wanted and AJ Styles who had never really had a big break and all of us were really deserving of something. So we were really going out there and busting our ass trying to make something happen not only for the company but for ourselves as well.

TNA’s first few shows were very mixed. Jerry Jarrett was the original booker of the company, but he had struggles with his son Jeff and Vince Russo about the creative direction of the company which led to some shows being hit and miss. Jerry wanted to focus the product on the action in the ring, while Jeff was under the influence of Vince Russo and wanted more “Crash TV” type elements added. Despite the creative problems it was clear though from the get go that AJ Styles would be the breakout star in TNA and the face of the company. TNA created an X-Division Championship for high flying wrestlers, Mike Tenay would describe the X-Division for years as, “It’s not about weight limits, it’s about no limits.” Years later there was a weight limited instituted, and then ignored, which ended up killing Tenay’s catch phrase. Jerry Jarrett created the concept for the X-Division, while Jeremy Borash came up with the name. AJ Styles was crowned the first X-Division Champion and he also won the NWA World Tag Team titles on TNA’s third show with Jerry Lynn as his tag team partner. Lynn and Styles at first had mutual respect for each other in their storyline, but Styles eventually turned heel which led to the feud becoming heated. After they dropped the tag team belts and Styles lost the X-Division title to Low Ki, they had a best of three series of matches on a weekly PPV in August.

TNA also had random storylines that really went nowhere, like a woman who randomly came out during matches and was given money by Jeremy Borash and Ed Ferrara. TNA also had NWA President Jim Miller on screen as an authority figure, and with all due respect to Jim Miller, he had no business being on television.

To add insult to injury during TNA’s third show they randomly had Miller kidnapped and shown on camera tied up shirtless in all his fat glory with “FU Miller” written on his back. When Miller initially went missing during the storyline announcer Ed Ferrara quipped, “I guess he found catering.” Ferrara also did a brief storyline where he was infatuated with Francine, he went to console her after a match and she hinted at him that she wanted to give him a blow job. Ferrara put his hands up and let her take off his belt and she proceeded to whip him.

There was also a tag team called the Johnsons who were wrestling penises. They wore flesh colored outfits while the announcers would make penis jokes. The weird thing is they didn’t even go all the way with gimmick which meant a lot of the time they were just two guys in flesh colored outfits. Years later WWE ripped the gimmick off by doing a tag team called The Dicks and had them squirt bottles of oil on each other while the announcers screamed, “The Dicks are coming!” There was also a series of “Dupp Cup” matches where you had to score points by doing crazy things to win. If you hit ring announcer Jeremy Borash or the ticket lady, you would get points. Ed Ferrara was one of the first challengers for the Dupp Cup; the stipulation was that if he won he would get to sleep with the Dupp’s cousin. TNA also featured a short lived midgets division where they actually had a wrestler named Puppet who claimed to be a midget killer, despite being a midget himself. There was an infamous segment where Puppet masturbated in a trash can.

CASSIDY RILEY: As far as The Johnsons go, that was just I don’t know. Let’s just be honest, it was crap. But there was some good stuff like the Dupps, I was a big fan of the Dupps.

BILL BEHRENS: I think the original thought process to get attention was trying too hard. It was let’s try to get people talking by doing things that titillate. We had a lot more than that, one of my earliest roles was in Huntsville and it was me rushing to the ring to cover up Jasmine St. Claire before she took her top off. Then we had girls in dancing cages, we had Lollipop go topless in the ring at the Fairgrounds. Midgets in the trash can was the least of it, it was just one of the more infamous.

RUDY CHARLES: I don’t know if I was a big fan of the midget masturbating.

BILL BEHRENS: Actually the more entertaining story was that in that promo that Puppet was supposed to do a line about I believe it was summer breeze or something like that, but basically it was a line that was supposed to have a reference to a douche. Bless his heart; he kept trying to get the promo. Puppet and I had worked together in Australia and I referred to him as one take Puppet because every time we did promos either together or separately we both nailed the promos in one take. Puppet was having a terrible time with this promo and finally he looked and he said he said hey look here is the problem what the hell is this summer spring breeze thing. We had to explain to him that it was a douche reference and then he finally figured the promo out and he got better at it. There were a lot of those efforts and there was also a lot of dysfunction at the beginning as TNA was getting going it was just scrambling. There was too many people doing drugs, too many people drinking, too many little bits of disorganization. It was both big and little all at the same time, we were trying to give the perception of doing something big and at the same time we were operating sometimes very much like a mid level indy.

CASSIDY RILEY: With some of the stuff they were getting on, some of it was getting really close to being that fine line of comedic gold and wrestling entertainment and some of it was just like taking a pile of shit and throwing it against the wall and seeing what sticks. That’s kind of my opinion on all of that, there was some stuff that had the potential to be fantastic, and there was a lot of stuff that was just trash.

DAVID YOUNG: There was some stuff I didn’t like, I didn’t like the Johnsons and stuff like that but for the most part I understood what Jerry was going for. He was going for the old Memphis style, it worked then and it was just a different time.

RUDY CHARLES: During those early days they were just trying to throw darts at the wall and see what would stick. There was some good stuff for sure, and there was some bad stuff for sure. But that is going to be the case with any show I think, they were just trying to survive and make a name for themselves. I thought some of those early X-Division matches the athleticism was freakin insane. The people who’d seen AJ and Daniels and those guys on the independents knew what they could do, but as far as a national audience I don’t think they’d been seen too much. I guess they were on WCW some, but TNA really gave them a forum to really shine.



CHAPTER 2: TNA NEARLY GOES UNDER

Behind the scenes TNA were facing major financial problems. Their consultant Jay Haussman had fed them false PPV buy numbers for their first few shows which made TNA think they were doing better financially than they really were. TNA were also told the marketing would be done for them by the PPV company but this never happened. There was a conspiracy theory that Haussman was possibly doing this for Vince McMahon at the time. TNA filed a lawsuit against Haussman, but this was the least of their problems. Their financial backers decided that they no longer wanted to invest in the company.

BILL BEHRENS: We went to the Municipal Auditorium first, the theory was that was a smaller and more affordable building, and it was. But it still wasn’t enough, it was okay we’re bleeding money and right around that time was when one of the two major investors backed out. So you were left with only a minority investor and a mad scramble.

DAVID YOUNG: Everybody thought it was over at that point, I mean everybody thought it was over. I think Jeff was the one that was kind of the glue that held everybody together because when we would have our meetings he would tell us that he was working on another backer and stuff like that. Nothing really changed for us, everything went on, but I’m sure Jeff was probably pulling his hair out behind the scenes.

RUDY CHARLES: It was a very uncertain [time period]. I had lived in Evansville, Indiana which is about two and a half hours from Nashville. Basically I was commuting at the time when TNA first started, I was staying with a friend in Nashville but I hadn’t really moved all my stuff down. I was looking to make Nashville my permanent residence and there was one weekend after all that stuff had gone down, in addition to refereeing I also answered the phones and worked as kind an administrative assistant during those early days. I thought when I left that Friday afternoon I just remember thinking to myself I don’t think I’m coming back to work on Monday. Somehow someway those guys pulled it out and really made it work I guess. It was just a real uncertain time. I remember Jason Jarrett said Rudy as long as you want a job with TNA you’ll have one. I always remember that and I thought that’d be a reward for my loyalty during the early days when nobody knew if we were getting paid, I might have been working for free donating my time. I figured if I can do this and be at the ground level of something, that’d be great and I thought the loyalty would be remembered but that’s okay.

CASSIDY RILEY: I just remember hearing that some people had not got paid, and that’s when Ed Ferrara was leaving for the first time. I just got to the building for a show on Wednesday night and I kind of started hearing some rumblings about what was going on. It’s one of those situations where you kind of hope for the best and expect the worst. I wasn’t real sure what was going to happen, I think that down deep I thought that it was probably going to go under. Just for obvious reasons, but my heart really wanted to say this thing is going to survive because it’s destiny because it has to for the sake of this business. I kind of had mixed emotions about all of that.

BILL BEHRENS: I remember standing with Jeff and Jerry one time when Jeff came up and said Dad you’re worth millions, can’t you just get the money so this is easy rather than us having to try to find an investor. Jerry explained to him while he might have that value on paper, he didn’t necessarily have it liquid. He could realize the money, but it would mean subdividing selling off property, selling out basically all of his assets and his land. This was not necessarily what he wanted or was willing to do at the time; they had already both invested a reasonable amount of money to get started with the other investors. So how much more money do you want to lose? Well fortunately I think it looked bad and then they had the lawsuit with the guy that was lying about some of the PPV buy rates and the PPV deal and all that other garbage. That led to litigation and eventually to his jailing. Finally Panda Energy [and Dixie Carter] stepped up and everything got at least slightly better.

LARRY ZBYSZKO: The story with TNA at the beginning was they had this secret backer who was Dr. Andrews from Alabama who was the knee specialist. He was the secret backer who didn’t want anybody to know he was backing it, but then all of the sudden it leaked out. Everybody found out that this Dr. Andrews was the guy, so he pulled out and TNA almost shut down. At those times I wasn’t involved and some other guys were, because they had no money. I remember Mike Tenay, Don West, and some other guys were working for free for a few months because there was no backer and they were trying to keep it alive. The interesting part of the story was in the mean time this woman Dixie Carter started a marketing company. I guess she was marketing a couple of country western singers or something out of Nashville, so she just started marketing and wanted to market the TNA people as part of her business. But then TNA almost went under because their secret backer pulled out. So Dixie calls her Dad Bob Carter of Panda Energy, and Panda Energy took it over and started putting money into it. Basically her Dad and Panda Energy bought it so Dixie could have something to use for her marketing company. That’s how TNA wound up in existence, they were very lucky. They’re very lucky with the Carters because Dixie Carter and Bob Carter they’re very nice people. Bob Carter is a great guy; Dixie is a really cool woman, very smart in terms of business. But again everybody is lacking the knowledge of the wrestling part of it which is the most important part.

JONNY FAIRPLAY: Jerry Jarrett’s business model was set up to make money, and he was wrong from the get go. But when Dixie Carter took over I don’t think it was an immediate make money type deal, it was one of those where hopefully 3 years from now we’re in the black. I think that was the plan going forward, and mission accomplished.

RUDY CHARLES: Dixie seemed very professional and like she had a good head on her shoulders. Dixie’s PR firm Trifecta had been TNA’s PR firm, and I guess Jeff and some of those guys had gone to some people trying to find the financing. Somehow it came up with him and Dixie, and Dixie was saying how her Dad was looking for something to invest in. Long story short, TNA and Panda ended up joining forces. I thought it was great, if it wasn’t for Panda TNA wouldn’t be here.

DAVID YOUNG: I really liked Dixie. Some people that were there, I’ll be honest with you, we never really saw them that much. They pretty much stayed in the office and stuff.

CASSIDY RILEY: I spoke with Dixie almost on a weekly basis when we were doing the weekly PPV’s. She came in immediately and was like hey you know I think it would be cool if they would do this with you guys and do that. So she came in immediately with ideas, and to her credit she didn’t know a lot about the wrestling business so she dove in head first and was wanting to learn and wanting to be a part and make a difference. I think the world of Dixie and always have, and always will.

SCOTT HUDSON: Well Dixie obviously, you meet her and she just takes your breath away she’s so good looking. Other than that once you get past the fact that you that you’re just truly like, my God this woman is the boss good grief. She didn’t strike me back then as being somebody who could be easily worked. If there was something going on and somebody was trying to work her to get their own angle over or something like that it wouldn’t work with her. I don’t know if that’s still the case or not, but that was what I thought of her.

DAVID YOUNG: She knows a lot more now than she did when she came in.

JONNY FAIRPLAY: Dixie made sure that she would at least say hello to everyone on the roster. Dixie is one of the best professionals I’ve worked with whether it be reality TV, movies, wrestling, anything. She’s very hands on in the fact that if there’s a problem you can come to her, or just making you feel welcomed as a part of her company. As far as the dirty work and the other stuff that was Jeff.

BIG VITO: Dixie was a nice lady, she was learning the business and she always treated me with respect. She was always there.

BILL BEHRENS: Dixie was around and was part of meetings. It was very much of an attitude of that she doesn’t really know the wrestling and to an extent the power beyond me only wanted her to have whatever education they wanted to give her at the time. Everything was a learning curve, and to some extent still is bless her heart. There was a separation between the business aspect of the company in quotations, and the wrestling aspect of the company for quite a long period of time. At first it was okay, everybody seemed to get along in that and eventually it got confrontational and created some problems between Dixie and Jeff that escalated over time and led inevitably when it was possible when Jeff was sent home and Dixie taking much more control over all aspects of the company. The basic feeling was the wrestling people did the wrestling, and Dixie did whatever the business was. Merchandise and she set up the other aspects of the business and leave us wrestling people alone on the creative; you don’t know what you were doing. Dixie was involved in the contracts, at the time Bob Ryder was involved in that until he wasn’t.

During TNA’s financial woes many people left including announcer Ed Ferrara and NWA World Champion Ken Shamrock. Shamrock dropped the world title to Ron “The Truth” Killings before leaving the company. After the dust had settled and TNA had financial support, the creative power struggle became evident.



CHAPTER 3: VINCE RUSSO
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One thing is for sure about Vince Russo. You either love him or hate him. Vince Russo began in the wrestling business in the mid 1990’s as a writer for WWF Magazine. He eventually became the editor and started sitting in on creative meetings. WWF’s business began to rapidly decline because their product was simply not reflective of society in the 90’s. WCW had the nWo storyline in full force which caused RAW’s ratings to plummet. In 1997 McMahon named Vince Russo as head of creative after reading some of his fantasy storyline ideas in WWF Magazine. Russo quickly made the WWF an edgier more reality based product, and with stars like Steve Austin and The Rock on top the WWF began a meteoric rise to the top. In late 1999 Russo left the WWF to write for WCW. Russo wrote off and on for WCW up until late 2000, and was criticized for many of his decisions including putting the WCW world title on actor David Arquette. There was also an incident at Bash at the Beach 2000 where Russo came out and cut a shoot promo on Hulk Hogan, publically firing him, which led to a lawsuit. Many fans blame Russo for the downfall of WCW, but in defense of him the company was already bleeding money and the AOL Time Warner merger had taken away control of WCW from Ted Turner. Ratings actually went up during Russo’s initial late 1999 WCW run, but they went down during his later run in 2000. After WCW folded in 2001, Russo was out of the wrestling business. In 2002 when the Jarretts decided they wanted to start a wrestling promotion, Russo told them that they should call it TNA.

Russo did not work for TNA initially when they started but he did give Jeff Jarrett creative ideas, much to the dismay of his father Jerry. Russo went back to work for the WWF briefly in 2002 and literally lasted one day. He pitched the idea of restarting the WWF vs. WCW storyline. Vince McMahon offered him a high paying consultant position, but Russo declined and decided to go to TNA for less money. Jerry Jarrett and Vince Russo constantly clashed over their wrestling mentalities. Jerry Jarrett was an old school promoter who believed the product should be focused on the wrestling and less on backstage skits, while Vince Russo preferred to show backstage skits and have shorter matches with a more rapid “Crash TV” pace. Jeff Jarrett frequently sided with Vince Russo, his creative mentor in the wrestling business. This caused plenty of tension between Jeff, Jerry, and Russo. Russo’s first run in TNA in 2002 and 2003 before he converted to Christianity was highly controversial.

LARRY ZBYSZKO: For some reason, McMahon does his thing he’s in his own world he doesn’t give a shit about wrestling or wrestlers. Everybody else that tried wrestling for some reason think they have to do it like Vince does. They just don’t know what to do, I mean Russo he was one of McMahon’s writers. Why, I have no idea. That’s the only reason he wound up in WCW and [TNA] is because they think he was with McMahon he must know something, he knows nothing. It’s not his fault. He just was never a wrestler, he was selling CD’s in Long Island, why is he in the business? Because Vince hired some writer that he hires and fires every six months and some idiot at WCW came up to me and said hey I stole McMahon’s writer, he wasn’t even under contract! I said he wasn’t under contract because no one gives a shit about him, he’s a nothing. That’s why he wasn’t under contract you dumb shit, they were all idiots at WCW running it.

SCOTT HUDSON: He seemed more passionate because in TNA he didn’t have the hierarchy to answer to. I don’t think he felt the pressure, that’s twofold. One, he didn’t have the pressure of the corporate hierarchy from Turner, and those guys looking over his shoulder. He didn’t have that and who was looking over his shoulder was his best friend, and that was Jeff. So it went from really awful to being perfect for him. You could tell in his demeanor and the way he carried himself, and the storylines he came up with, everything. He was, I won’t say he was a different guy because he really wasn’t that bad of a guy to begin with. If he had been different it would have been bad, but you could tell he was more passionate. He knew he didn’t have to answer to a corporate hierarchy that went from Atlanta to New York and all the way up with 15 levels of bureaucracy to answer to. It was just making sure Jeff and Jerry were happy and that was it.

DAVID YOUNG: At first I didn’t like Vince because he didn’t like me. He grew on me; Vince didn’t like people from the south. He doesn’t like people with southern accents on TV.

CASSIDY RILEY: I remember Vince coming in before they ever hired him. We were at the Municipal Auditorium and sitting down, we had went out and worked a dark match with a couple of guys from Canada and Vince said hey I really like those two kids, talking about myself and Chase Stevens. He’s like I think they need a job. That was one good thing about Vince is like, he always seemed to always be wanting fresh talent and young guys to make new stars, and for that I applaud him.

LARRY ZBYSZKO: Russo is not a wrestling guy; he doesn’t have respect for wrestling. According to him he just wants to write a show even without the ring in it you know, stupid skits.

JONNY FAIRPLAY: My whole thing with everything that I read back then was it sounded like Vince Russo talking with different puppets saying it. It was his verbiage, his New York slang. I don’t use New York slang, and neither does Road Dogg. To watch Simon Diamond, Road Dogg, and Jeff Jarrett all using these same kind of words that Vince Russo wrote. It’s just like; does anyone see a problem here? Like imagine watching Lost and Mr. Echo talking just like Benjamin Linus. You’re like what the hell is wrong with these people? Since then I’ve talked with like Sinister Minister and basically there was times at the beginning where he kind of fought to get to work in his stuff, so a compromise was made with those guys. I’m more than positive that Raven had the same kind of deal going.

RUDY CHARLES: I had never met the man [Russo], you hear all these terrible stories like he’s the antichrist and ruined professional wrestling and all. In the early days we actually made a connection because we both went to school at the same university. It’s a place in Evansville, Indiana. He was a journalism guy and I went to school for journalism as well. We did have a little common connection there, he married a girl from Evansville which is my hometown. I think we kind of bonded more so than we would have otherwise. I always liked him, I didn’t like some of the swearing and stuff that he used in the early days before he became a Christian, but that was him.

CASSIDY RILEY: As best as I can remember, when [Vince] came in and went to work, he went to work. He was one of the producers; he came in he started immediately producing segments. He was on the creative team; he had a hand in that. When he was initially brought in he was one of the top guys.

LARRY ZBYSZKO: It wasn’t that Russo had say [creatively]. At the very beginning before Dixie came into the picture, it was basically Jeff. Jeff and Jerry started it, I’m not sure but the story was they were always at each other’s throats, I guess. Jeff was the boss and Russo was basically the work horse. Jeff would come in and say I’ve got my buddy Road Dogg here and I’ve got my buddy this guy here and I want to push this guy so, Jeff would like tell him what to do. Russo would sit there and write all this weird stuff up because he didn’t know. Then Jeff would come in and try and tweak it and Dutch Mantell, who was probably the most knowledgeable guy at the time, would change little things here and there. Jeff was basically the boss and Russo was basically his gopher or right hand man and he did all of the writing based on what Jeff wanted.

BILL BEHRENS: Vince in the early days spent an awful lot of time helping guys on promos.

CASSIDY RILEY: I remember seeing Vince Russo dress Chris Harris up in like a white shirt and like a Fabio style; I think he was trying to make him emulate Fabio. I remember he had Chris Harris smoking a cigarette in a promo; I just kind of sat back and scratched my head. It was so obvious because at that time Chris was such a health freak, not like he is now, obviously I mean he’s out of shape. That’s back when his body was probably in its prime. I remember seeing Chris smoking a cigarette and try and cut the promo and he just couldn’t do it because he was so uncomfortable.

SCOTT HUDSON: I didn’t know that he was writing the show when he was writing it, if that makes sense. I mean I know that he was, let me back up and give a quick example. In WCW when he had the book and he was the writer and the guy, we would have production meetings where Vince would go over chapter in verse everything that was going on the PPVs and Nitro down to the scripted promos and everything. You knew Vince was in charge, if you had a problem you went to Vince with it. But in TNA I never heard that once, it was always Jeff going over the booking sheets. I know Jeff didn’t write them all, and I know that for a fact.

RUDY CHARLES: This is before he was saved and I think that [the storylines] were kind of reflective. In a lot of ways the Vince Russo of 2002 and 2003 was not a very happy man. He was kind of bitter and angry at the world, I think that did come across on his on screen character, and was kind of was true to his real personality at the time.

Vince Russo debuted on screen in TNA in late 2002 when he assisted Jeff Jarrett in defeating Ron Killings to win the NWA World Title. Russo was in disguise as Mr. Wrestling III and unmasked himself to reveal his true identity which caused announcer Mike Tenay to shriek, “Holy shit, it’s Vince Russo!” Russo proceeded to do many worked shoot type storylines like he had done in WCW. Storylines that were presented as real and had internet insider references. He did a worked shoot interview with Mike Tenay where he ridiculed Mike Tenay’s philosophy on wrestling, “If you were the writer of this show, we would have a two hour wrestling match that nobody would watch.” He also wrestled in a six man tag match where he had ring announcer Jeremy Borash acknowledge him as a former WCW World Champion, to the disgust of Mike Tenay. Russo also started up a stable called SEX, which stood for Sports Entertainment Xtreme. This led to many worked shoot promos that included Roddy Piper calling Russo the Osama Bin Laden of professional wrestling and blaming him for Owen Hart’s death.

On June 11, 2003 during the NWA World Title match between Jeff Jarrett, AJ Styles, and Raven, Russo interfered and aligned himself with AJ Styles by hitting Jeff Jarrett with a guitar, causing Styles to win the NWA World Title for the very first time. Russo then became Styles’ manager. Styles and Russo did many skits together including dressing up as horror characters Freddy and Jason.

RUDY CHARLES: It was definitely interesting because even the wrestlers behind the scenes didn’t know what was happening. I just remember one time being backstage and all of the sudden you hear Roddy Piper’s music, and going what the heck there’s Roddy Piper. It wasn’t on the format or anything that I’d seen, so in a way it was good because there were surprises and you never knew what was going to happen. I remember one time one of the Moondogs showed up in a match and none of the guys in the match knew about it so it made it kind of awkward. It made it a little interesting for sure.

BILL BEHRENS: I thought elements of the SEX idea were good and the group that was put together that defined it, which was Daniels, Elix Skipper, and Low Ki, was very strong. I’m not a fan of Russo as on air character, so my comment would be I would have preferred he had not been an on air character. That is just my personal opinion, other people may like him as an on air character. I think he has much less skill at that than say Eric Bischoff does , Eric Bischoff has proven that he’s a compelling on air character.

DAVID YOUNG: [SEX] was fun, much like the nWo it got too big. It got to where everybody was a member of SEX. Once it got so big you couldn’t really do anything with it any more, it kind of lost heat.

SCOTT HUDSON: The tagline was supposed to be SEX presents TNA, that’s what they were going for. Sports Entertainment Xtreme presents Total Nonstop Action, but they wanted SEX presents TNA. It was supposed to be the ultimate heel anti normalcy, who could like SEX presents TNA, how could that be a babyface group. That was going to be the angle, and that was what they ended up doing.

In late 2003 Russo took a break from TNA after being written off following a match with Jeff Jarrett and went through a very dark period in his life. He contemplated writing a brutally honest tell all book about his experiences in wrestling and the people he thought had screwed him. He then found God, or as Russo will repeatedly tell you, God found him. Russo returned to TNA in early 2004 in an on screen role as a babyface for the first time, with his character reflecting his real life changes. Russo also had creative say in 2004, although he has often said his creative role had diminished by that point.

SCOTT HUDSON: I loved Vince even before he went through his conversion to Christianity. He never treated me with anything except respect and class. I just absolutely have nothing bad to say about him or Eric Bischoff; they both were great to me in WCW. He never treated me poorly at all, so when I went to TNA I hooked right back up with everybody that’s there, whom I know most of them already from WCW. Then Vince and I just fell back in it was like riding a bike, so there was never any heat with us. I think the world of him.

DAVID YOUNG: Russo had changed. He came back he had got religion. He was a different person, like I told you before he didn’t like southern wrestlers he didn’t like guys with southern accents. He was really big on New Yorkers and guys from the North, when he came back he was just totally different. He even sat me down and told me that he didn’t like me before until he saw what kind of person I actually was. We went to AJ brother’s funeral and he saw how me and AJ interacted at the funeral, and he told me that after seeing that he saw that I was a good person so it changed his opinion of me in general.

RUDY CHARLES: He [Russo] did seem a lot more at peace, he wasn’t swearing all the time. He just seemed like a more spiritual person, he did seem like a changed man. From every indication I have that’s the case. People have accused him of it being a gimmick but I don’t think that’s the case and I think he genuinely kind of went through some personal changes. It really was amazing to see the difference in him; he wasn’t this bitter sour person anymore. He was just a positive and happy person for the most part, and it was a nice change to see in him.

SCOTT HUDSON: I can’t say that I noticed a huge change in Vince after his conversion, but that’s only because he didn’t strike me as really that bad of a guy before. You can look at the angles that he booked, how could somebody put Judy Bagwell on a pole and that other stuff. As far as how he acted, and using that as the sole measuring device, he didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who when he became a Christian I was all the sudden going to go wow you don’t even seem like the same fella. I just never saw that side of him. It was obvious that he was certainly at more peace with himself. He wasn’t as conflicted over little rinky dink stuff; it didn’t make him mad it didn’t get him upset. But again, that’s only antidotal from me because I never saw it firsthand at all.

LARRY ZBYSZKO: He seemed a little different. You know Russo; he’s not a bad guy in person. He’s just one of these guys that I have no idea why he’s in the business. There’s really nothing to say about Russo because it’s not his fault. The question is why do people who own wrestling hire Russo? How do they think he knows anything?

CASSIDY RILEY: He was always just the same guy; I mean I didn’t know him as well as some. I guess it’d probably be unfair for me to say he changed in this way and that way because that would just be speculation. He was always polite to me, even before and after his rebirth with God.

PETEY WILLIAMS: Honestly I didn’t have any interaction with [Russo] at all when he was first there. It was pretty much like I’m the new guy, I introduced myself to everybody and whatever, but I just listened to my agent. When you’re new you’re just trying to get familiar, you’re going with the flow listening to what you’re told, just taking it all in. It’s a lot to take in when you go to a televised company, coming from indies and doing nothing going to a televised company. Honestly I didn’t know if Vince was the writer, an agent, the booker, I had no idea. I just knew he was a top guy in there. So like I said I didn’t have a lot of interaction with him when I first started.

JONNY FAIRPLAY: My first big promo that I cut on TNA he gave me a script of about 3 pages to read, and I’m more than positive that it’s the longest script anyone’s been given in the history of TNA. I sat there and read it and I went back to Russo, and said that’s cool and all but Jonny Fairplay wouldn’t say a lot of these things. His reply was: “in TNA Jonny Fairplay would.”

You can check out what Vince Russo is up to today on PyroandBallyhoo.com.



CHAPTER 4: JERRY JARRETT

Many often overlook Jerry Jarrett’s importance in the history of TNA. He co-founded the company with his son Jeff in 2002 and nearly went bankrupt trying to keep it alive, along with his construction company. Jarrett originally was the head booker, but later lost his position which led to his son Jeff taking over. Jarrett had many problems with Vince Russo and the Carters throughout his run in the company, which inevitably led to his departure in 2005.

BILL BEHRENS: Jerry was the original booker. Most of the early stuff either he gets credit or gets blamed for, both good and bad. Most of the stuff that people didn’t like they blamed Russo for, Russo was simply helping with the writing and eventually came on board as an on air character. But Jerry was the original booker, eventually Jeff sort of took over with Dutch and Vince writing.

SCOTT HUDSON: I know that Jerry was around a lot. Again I had never met him until I went to TNA. He was around a ton, he was accessible, he was backstage, it was almost like he was like the head coach. If you play football at high school at the college level the head coach sometimes to the players seems more just like the big rara guy while the assistants are the ones that come up with schemes and Xs and Os and game plans. I don’t know what Jerry’s real role was but he was always around and doing everything he could do to keep us pumped up. That’s good stuff, that’s really getting over, that was very entertaining, good job that was great. But again I was only there one night a week; I don’t know what happened Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

BILL BEHRENS: At the beginning the basic problem with Jerry and Vince Russo was very simple. Jerry doesn’t trust Vince Russo and doesn’t like him. He told Jeff that he was a cancer and shouldn’t be around. Jeff and Vince had a much better relationship than Jerry and Vince did. But now you go to modern [Spring 2010] TNA and Jeff is out of the creative, Vince is in the creative [as of March 2012 now he is out too], Jerry Jarrett is not in the company, and Jerry and his son Jeff don’t communicate.

SCOTT HUDSON: Whatever problems they had, one of two things, it didn’t exist while I was there, or if it existed they hid it incredibly well because I never saw anything about that. They were both there while I was there obviously, but I never heard the first crossed word between them. I never heard the first Vince grabbing me and pulling me aside and saying hey look don’t tell anybody this. I mean nothing, nothing like that at all while I was there. So if it was going on, if there was heat there, it was kept incredibly silent or it just didn’t exist. One of those two.

CASSIDY RILEY: I really never saw [tension between Jerry Jarrett and Vince Russo] personally. I read Jerry’s journal, and I was always very close to Jerry, if there was ever anything in question or I needed to know something as far as what I was doing he was one of the guys that I would try to go to for answers because for whatever reason he seemed to take a liking to me early on. Likewise, I thought he hung to me because I knew his past and what he had done in the wrestling business. So I always was just honored that he could take time and sit down and talk to me. He had such a great mind for the wrestling business, that he could convey to people the point that he’s trying to get across and it’s so much easier to work like that than just [somebody] handing you a script and saying memorize it and this is what you are going to be. I never saw any animosity between Jerry and Vince personally, I think everybody was professional and tried to keep it away from the boys as much as possible.

RUDY CHARLES: I don’t remember anything specifically happening. I remember being at the office and one day Jerry wasn’t coming into the office anymore. I wasn’t really sure what happened, I was still pretty low on the totem pole so I didn’t want to ask anybody and get heat or anything. Just one day he wasn’t there, and you kind of hear rumblings. Basically I guess something to do with Vince, Jeff, and Jerry having a falling out. That was in 2003.

RUDY CHARLES: In 2004 when we started going down to Orlando Jerry was still there because he would go down to Orlando with us some.

PETEY WILLIAMS: It seemed like as I started he [Jerry] was having less involvement, that’s what it seemed like. Once again Vince and Jerry were in the same boat, I didn’t have a bunch of interaction with them [in 2004]. Jerry still had a lot of pull he was talking to guys about contracts and coming up with some ideas for shows and stuff like that. He was behind the headset in the Gorilla position and stuff. He ate lunch with us too and he loved joking around with us, so he was a pretty cool down to earth guy. But yeah like I said he left around the same time as Vince, maybe a little bit later.

SONJAY DUTT: [Jerry] was real good, a real funny guy real personable. He definitely was a big help in whatever I was doing, he always made it a point to give his opinion on things and tweak things here and there. He was a smart guy man; I remember he was even in the Orlando days, he’d eat catering with us and he’d bullshit. Man I don’t know what happened between him and Jeff but that’s family matters I guess.

CASSIDY RILEY: From what I’m told it was just kind of like Jerry had a vision and certain people tried to go in different directions than what he wanted to do. But it’s impossible for me to see how you can argue with a guy like that; he’s had such a track record of being so successful in this business. If it was me, and Jerry wanted to take the leads and take the reins and run with it, by all means I would be the first guy to pass it to him and say please let’s see what you can do, and hopefully he can bring this thing out. I really don’t know, I think it was more just kind of everything he wanted to do they were wanting to go in a different direction. He was kind of outnumbered and I think he just kind of had enough of it and by the end of the day he just decided to walk away because he didn’t want to be associated with something that he thought was destined for failure, and I can’t blame him.

SCOTT HUDSON: Jerry and I sat together at my last Orlando trip and had breakfast on the morning of the PPV on that Sunday. He was the same as he always was, just a great guy. Usually we would swap stories because not many of the younger guys would remember the territory days and I do, so we swapped stories about Dutch Mantell, Jerry Lawler, Andy Kaufman, Austin Idol, and Jackie Fargo and that sort of stuff.

DAVID YOUNG: Always [tension] between Jerry and Vince Russo. Jerry never liked Vince. It’s hard to say between Jeff and Jerry, because Jerry would always back anything Jeff said. I will say that, when Jerry was there Jeff was number one.

BILL BEHRENS: Jerry was very supportive of his son all the way through there and similarly Jeff was, in fact Jerry had a number of heart related health scares while we were in Nashville at the Fairgrounds. He literally had, I believe a heart attack, if it wasn’t one it was damn close to one because we had to rush him to the hospital and we all just told Jeff go with your Dad to the hospital. They were very close and maintained that until Jerry wanted to get out and when Jeff didn’t want to get out with him that’s when Jerry wrote him out of his life basically.

DAVID YOUNG: Honestly I don’t know why Jerry left. I know it had something to do with him taking [Koslov] to the WWE. It had something to do with him going to Johnny Ace and saying some stuff about TNA as far as I know, that was the rumor so you couldn’t actually quote me on that for a fact.

PETEY WILLIAMS: I remember [Jerry] went over there.

JERRY JARRETT: The TNA situation is painful to me on several levels. It was in great part responsible for a personal loss. It was painful on a business level. I chose to walk away from the business when I realized I was fighting a battle I could not win. I don’t wish to return even in conversation.

CHAPTER 5: JEFF JARRETT
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Jeff Jarrett was the man in TNA during their early years. Jarrett was the co-founder of TNA and part of the creative team in 2002. Jarrett is widely regarded as a talented wrestler and generally a nice guy, but he received some criticism for pushing himself too hard as the top star in TNA for several years. Jarrett was initially a top heel in the company but was not part of the world title picture. His character felt like he was getting “screwed” by management, there was even a racist themed segment where Jeff Jarrett accused NWA official Ricky Steamboat as picking Ron “The Truth” Killings as the number one contender for the World Title because they were both minorities. Jarrett eventually turned face and won the NWA World Title from Kill