10 Wrestlers Who Left And Returned More Badass
6. Jeff Jarrett
*Lionel Hutz voice*
"There's badass..."
*Smiles enthusiastically*
"And there's badass..."
*Shakes head from side to side*
Jeff Jarrett occupied a strange role in WCW in 1997. Without the WWF's excellent production magic, and tremendous in-house music department, he found himself vying for respect in a rebooted Four Horsemen stable that itself was floundering. The thrust of his character arc was determining whether or not he was a star, and he had no hope of resonating as one, tasked as he was with carrying the legendarily awful Steve McMichael - think Tyson Fury when WWE hires him full-time - to anything remotely decent.
It was a failure of a run, and upon his return two years later, he sought to make a headline act of his stern misogynist midcard bit in the WWF. It didn't work; his "Don't piss me off" schtick was perversely priceless because pissing him off resulted not in a real ass-kicking but a stiff guitar shot cracked over the bonce of a geriatric woman.
In WCW, his very positioning was a stark illustration of the WWF's runaway victory. Jarrett's talk of "stroke" and cartoon gimmick-assisted beatdowns formed the pejorative core of WCW's value range Attitude Era, and Jarrett was, all too accurately, the face of the company.