Jeff Jarrett Talks TNA Not Re-Signing Alex Shelley In 2012, Says He Fell Out Of Favor With Dixie Carter

Jeff Jarrett believes that Alex Shelley fell out of favor with Dixie Carter.

In May 2012, the historic first run of the Motor City Machine Guns came to an end, as Alex Shelley’s contract with TNA expired. Shelley quickly moved on from the company and joined New Japan Pro Wrestling to form the Time Splitters tag team with KUSHIDA.

At the time, the departure was questioned heavily by fans, mainly due to the popularity of Shelley and Sabin as a tag team.

On the latest edition of My World (via AdFreeShows), Jarrett talked about Shelley’s departure from the company, noting that he wasn’t involved in the decision at all. Jarrett also stated that Shelley had fell out of favor with Dixie Carter.

“In 2011, I was completely, at this point, completely out of creative and not told anything. It was Hulk, it was, we’ll call it that five headed monster that was never productive because there was never one true boss. It was Dixie, Hulk, Eric, Bruce, and Russo. I don’t think they’re — not just these guys, but there was several, ‘Well, okay, Alex ain’t gonna fit. We’re not going to cut Chris because he’s on the injured.’ When they brought him back, I think he became World Champion. I was not in the know on any of this so I’m definitely not the one to ask. I do remember, because I was international and live events, I was like, ‘Man, there’s value in Motor City Machine Guns merch and tag on live events.’ We had a series of live events where they did well. That was not in the cards so as we know, by 2013, our live event program was headed south quickly but even in 2012, I don’t think we had them as regular as we wanted. They fell out of favor with Dixie, there’s no two ways about that. If she wanted to re-sign them, they would have but for whatever reason, Alex, to my knowledge and recollection, fell out of favor with her.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Jarrett talked about the potential of a wrestling event at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Learn more by clicking here.

If you missed anything from the September 18 edition of AEW Dynamite, catch up on the show here.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit and link to the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.