15 Biggest BURIALS Wrestlers Never Recovered From
13. Jeff Jarrett (By Stone Cold Steve Austin)
There was a lot about the Jarretts Jerry and Jeff that stuck in the throat of Stone Cold Steve Austin when he made it to the very top of professional wrestling.
A distaste took root in Memphis. Austin was getting started, getting reps and getting paid - but only the first two were forecasting the career he'd eventually go on to have. Jerry was notorious for being tighter than a Bret Hart lock-up when it came to payoffs, so much so that territory regular Dutch Mantell tells the hilarious story of the time he responded to the question of if he was on steroids with the reply that "most of us aren't even on food!".
Austin has often shared the story of how he survived on raw potatoes and tuna, and Jeff infamously compounded the hard times with a quip that the gnawed at the future 'Rattlesnake's psyche. As Austin examined a low cheque, made man Jeff strolled by and joked "keep staring at it, it isn't gonna get any bigger".
He helped light a fire that would eventually set the business ablaze, but he found himself burned by the flames of the grudge Austin held, not least when he posed a more direct threat to Stone Cold's earnings with a worked shoot promo on the Austin 3:16 marketing when he returned to the company in 1997. Referring to it as blasphemous in an failed early Attitude Era reintroduction, Jarrett marked his cards all over again. Austin's star power and influence only increased, and with Vince McMahon's ear and Jim Ross' friendship, he was calling almost all of his shots for the duration of his topline run. None of them - outside of caustic burial stunners on episodes of Raw in 1998 and 1999 - involved mixing it up with the former Intercontinental Champion.