Jeff Jarrett – ‘Kurt Angle & Jerry Lawler Brought Out The Best In Me’
On the latest episode of his “My World” podcast, Jeff Jarrett spoke about WWE Hall of Famers Jerry Lawler and Kurt Angle bringing out the best in him, the actual potential of Elix Skipper, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On who brought out the best in him: “I gotta say with everything that was going on in my — remove the personal side of it. But in my professional life at that stage, Kurt Angle. When I — look, here I am still wrestling week to week now. But you know, we signed Kurt and you can, as we talked through the podcast. For lack of a better word, I was just — I’d been a heavy force as far as entering talent from 2002 when we launched up till about 2006-ish, seven-ish. And I went away, and Kurt was there day in and day out.
“So I’ll say this. In my mind, my best days of entering competitions were pretty much in my rearview mirror. I never said I’ve retired or anything like that. But in 2010 when I and Kurt had our series of matches, there was a competitive nature because who doesn’t want to compete with an Olympic gold medalist or whatever you wanna say. But just Kurt, Shawn Michaels in the nineties, every time — I don’t care if it’s a single or a tag whatever, Shawn, I love to push myself. I think his athleticism is just right up there. And then in a kind of a unique way, Lawler. When I was working with Jerry Lawler, I wanted to — his psychology is so good. Less is more, just an absolute master at the subtleties and the small things that you do in a match. And, you know, we did that 60 through a couple of times in Tennessee. We had some matches in Memphis beyond that. So those three, I feel are guys that I wanted to compete and really, really achieve. I’m sure I’m missing a few here and there but those three off the top of my mind.”
On Elix Skipper: “A gym conversation, I got a couple of folks that are podcast listeners in the gym. And they were like, ‘Oh my God, I hadn’t seen Elix in [so long]. And my buddy said, ‘You know, what’s a shame is that Elix is really remembered only for that kind of tightrope walk and Don West call. And it’s like, as if that was kind of Elix’s only high spot. You look at Elix’s body of work in TNA, he and Daniels were really good. And yeah, Low Ki, yes. Triple X is what they’re called.
“But Elix — on the one hand, I wish he would’ve stuck with it. On the other hand, he obviously did what was best for Elix. And when you look in the era of professional wrestling, it’s really almost right before social media and, and as it was breaking, but independent wrestling in the 2000s to 2010-ish, Conrad, it’s — you look at Matt Cardona out there killing it. And he’, and others that have a full-time living off independent wrestling. And from WCW closing down till, I don’t know, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, something like that. It was tough. So Elix was in that timeframe, he obviously made a decision to go make a full-time living and not kind of scratch and claw. And my hat’s off to him for doing so.”
On AEW having a language policy: “I think context is king. And the delivery of the curse word, or the foul language, I think it has — and I think this is so much in facials. And I think a lot of times, I’ll call it kind of next level psychology that I think in 2023, because you can see everything on your phone. It’s not like you gotta go searching for a curse word. I mean, TikTok, Instagram, it’s everywhere. So I think that people nowadays are so desensitized to it, that I think you’ve gotta create a sense of being that the delivery comes in a way that the viewer says, ‘Damn.’ Just what you said Conrad, he’s mad and he didn’t care to cuss. Even though he knows or will think about it in a few minutes, he has consequences coming. Because you know, we have a language policy at AEW. And you have to with network shows, I mean there is a language policy. So anyway, we’re getting in a rabbit hole. All delivery. To me, it’s all delivery.”
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