12 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: TNA (Parts 1 & 2)

It's true. Big Vlad changed the game for Total Nonstop Action.

Jerry Jarrett had gone to his son Jeff and pleaded with him to “get out” and away from the Carter family by that point. Truthfully, as aforementioned, he’d been bitter since Russo came onboard, but things didn’t really change until Jerry took 'hot prospect' Vladimir Kozlov to WWE HQ for a meeting with Vince McMahon despite still being under contract with TNA.

The veteran was photographed, and TNA’s investors weren’t happy with what they were seeing. On VICE, Jeff said his father “knew what he was doing”, and he had to distance himself from daddy dearest after that to take a stand against his disrespect. Being estranged from his dad was tough on Jeff: “I’m well aware of my character defects”, he added.

Man, it's so crazy to think that WWE flop Kozlov was involved here. TNA top brass obviously felt like Jerry should've been looking out for their interests, not the McMahon family's. A power struggle was ongoing, and this was Jarrett's way of sticking a middle finger right up the Carter family and Russo all at once.

Again, Jeff was caught smack bang in the middle of that, and he was forced to choose between trying to build TNA and siding with his dad. Meanwhile, Kozlov went on to stink up the joint in pay-per-view main events before turning into a comedy character who was pretty much going nowhere.

The biggest takeaway from this is that Vlad wasn't worth bickering about.