Jeff Jarrett’s Grand Plan for Global Force Wrestling
Jeff Jarrett has been a wrestling mainstay for nearly 30 years. From his time in WWF and WCW to his reign as “King of the Mountain” in TNA – the promotion he co-founded in 2002 – Double J has long been the man with the stroke, both both inside the ring and behind the scenes. But when he left TNA in early 2014, it seemed that we might have seen the last of Jarrett in the business he was born into.
Turns out, his sabbatical was short-lived: In April 2014, he announced the founding of Global Force Wrestling. Since then, many questions have been asked about the promotion, yet few answers have been given. But on June 12, Global Force officially launched, with a live show at a minor league ballpark in Jackson, Tennessee. Can Jarrett build a true competitor to WWE from those humble beginnings? He’s going to try, and with the collective might of several indie promotions behind him, he’s got a plan in place – one that draws from wrestling’s past, and might actually bring the business into the future.
So I might as well ask the biggest question right off the bat: “What is Global Force Wrestling?”
It is a professional wrestling organization that we’d like to think will be forward-thinking and innovative. We have formed alliances with other promotions around the world so we can share talent and bring in talent. Every wrestler has a story. They’ve started in some organization. Over the past 15 years, all the organizations have sort of sat on an island. They don’t interact at all. We look at it differently. We want other organizations to thrive. We want them to do as well as they can. It’s a win-win for wrestling if that’s the case. Thirty years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for different promotions to share talent. You would load up a big card with wrestlers from other territories. It is a professional wrestling organization, first and foremost.
So would you characterize it as almost an “All Star” organization, with the best from all these different organizations coming together?
I wouldn’t necessarily say that. We’re going to have our core roster. We’ll also have opportunities for wrestlers from around the world to come in and showcase their talents. They could be local stars, they could be regional stars, they could be international stars. We’re going to give them an opportunity to get on the global stage. We’ll have our core roster though. We’ll have different matchups and different looks. As a wrestling fan, that excites me.
It is going to be different from the norm. A lot of people are having trouble understanding our mindset. It’s exciting to me though. One big thing is that we’re not really going to write stories, although that goes into professional wrestling. Instead, we’re going to document stories. Like I said, every wrestler has a story. Why does he want to be in this business? What makes him tick as a human being? What is he competing for? The short answer is that he’s competing to get the best bookings, he’s competing to get the best matches. Maybe he’s competing to sell the most T-shirts. There’s a real competition in this business and we want to bring that to the forefront.
So you’ll be focusing on competition, rather than storylines or angles?
Yes. Now, that being said, we will have some stories. When people start to see the product, I think they’ll start to understand and gravitate towards it more. I can’t to start our Grand Slam tour and then head out to Vegas.
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