6 Backstage Wrestling Politicians Who Never Drew A Dime
4. Jeff Jarrett
Triple H is not included here - but he is a dishonourable mention.
He was the ultimate wrestling politician, so he is as well-qualified for inclusion in this list as Vince McMahon is for hell. Legitimising his case further, Triple H was nowhere near a draw big enough to warrant the longest main event push in WWE history. However, in 2005, Triple H set a WrestleMania PPV buy record, outside of a boom period, because people wanted him to see him lose a World title. He did the same thing for B-level pay-per-views, too; until the never-to-be-repeated pipe dream that was InVasion drew 775,000 buys, Backlash 2000 broke the record for a non-Big Four event with a staggering 650,000. WrestleMania 19 didn’t even do that well. You can argue that the Rock drew that number - not that he would have pulled it with Mr. Ass - but you can’t argue with those results.
Jeff Jarrett in his relentless NWA World Champion era was nicknamed ‘Triple J’. He earned it because, like Triple H allegedly did, Jarrett used his “stroke” to rip and tear through the locker room. Dixie Carter presided over the company Vince Russo booked, but really, Jeff Jarrett ran it.
Jeff Jarrett always thought he was great enough to main event, jumping around the 1990s to achieve that goal, and you can half-see why. He was one of the best rookies ever when he broke out - almost in the Kurt Angle or Jun Akiyama class - and he’s considered one of the most solid and safest pros ever. But he wasn’t very big, and he wasn’t on the level of smaller peers Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. When Jarrett did get the opportunity, he became a meme for not drawing. He didn’t draw in WCW, but then again, nobody did; wrestlers with a strong history of drawing prowess, like Sting and Goldberg, were rendered valueless in 1999 and beyond.
Early adopters of TNA were vehement in their disgust of Jarrett’s constant quest for heat and bored of his ceaseless crowd brawl matches. Jarrett, no stranger to the NWA title either side of it, underwent his own lengthy Reign of Terror between June 2, 2004 and May 15, 2005. Fans were particularly angry when Jarrett didn’t drop the title to Monty Brown at Final Resolution ‘05. That was the moment Jarrett could no longer justify his spot as some sort of gatekeeping need. Who cares if Monty wasn’t “ready”? The fans believed in him, and if he wasn’t, you switch the title back.
Jarrett’s loss to Sting at Bound For Glory 2006 drew between 55,000 and 60,000 buys. That is some number when you consider how difficult it is to do anything notable in the shadow of post-2001 WWE. Fair play to Jeff for his role in pulling it. Jarrett however didn’t have to bring fans into the Impact Zone, entry for which was free with the price of admission to Universal Studios, so it’s literally impossible to determine whether he was a draw or not. This isn’t helped by the fact that they used to make memes about how little the Impact ratings changed week-to-week.
Jarrett legitimised TNA, which is sort of oxymoronic, but you get the meaning. He didn’t draw fans to it as a talismanic top star, or anything, but while he deserves inclusion here, conversely, he probably deserves more plaudits in retrospect.