Effy: I Got The Full Jeff Jarrett Experience; I Fought Him, I Lost, He Decided To Change The Finish

One of the biggest matches at The WRLD on GCW at Hammerstein Ballroom featured Jeff Jarrett’s return to the ring to take on Effy. 

It marked Jarrett’s first bout in almost two years against one of the top stars on the Independent scene with the feud kicking off at the start of the year when Jarrett made a surprise appearance in the promotion. Jarrett would end up victorious in the Hammerstein Ballroom and hasn’t returned to GCW since, taking a job as the Senior Vice President of Live Events in WWE. 

Speaking to Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Effy reflected on getting the full Jeff Jarrett experience. 

“I have to brag on myself. Now that he ran back to Vince (McMahon), and maybe we’re doing a Memphis storyline where this goes longer, but I think I deserve one more match. I was at the top of the mountain. I did not die to the guitar shot that happened at Hammerstein Ballroom. I no sold a guitar shot, I’ve never seen it done from Jeff Jarrett. Second, I took The Stroke with a guitar around my neck, I’ve never seen it done before. Everybody tried to talk me out of it because it’s very dangerous, but I said, ‘I have to have this moment.’ Everyone asked, ‘How is Jeff Jarrett?’ I got the full Jeff Jarrett experience. I got to fight him, I got to lose to him, and I got to have him decide to change the finish halfway through a show. You have to get the full Jeff Jarrett and when you look back on the memoir you go, ‘Well, he got me too,’ me and Vince have that in common now,” he said.

It is unknown if Jarrett will ever return to GCW. 

Before touching on the feud with Jarrett, Effy explained how he has to turn off his “mark brain” when he is in the ring with stars who may have made their name elsewhere and how he’s able to create moments with them in the ring. 

“There’s an Effy epiphany that happens, and I’ve seen it happen, Jeff Jarrett, Cardona, PCO, Jimmy Jacobs, Fandango, Minoru Suzuki, where I don’t have the background of ‘he worked at Ring of Honor, NXT, IMPACT, we know his thing and we know he’s safe.’ There’s a little bit of an outlaw unsafeness to me existing. I know I’m soft and kind of gay, but I’m also hardcore and crazy and I talk a lot of shit, so there’s a little bit of apprehension when we get in. I made it a mission to go, ‘I want to make sure when I’m getting these moments and these matches, that Effy is still in this match.’ It’s not just ‘thank you so much for this opportunity to stand next to you and do your moves,’ Effy is in this match. I have to sometimes approach things with my ‘mark brain’ turned off. I have turn it off completely. I remember having to lambast Jeff Jarrett a little bit because he wanted to do some things that I was not going to have happen and I was not going to let happen. You’re going, ‘this is bizarre right now that I’m holding the line to Jeff Jarrett and telling him what he’s going to do,’ but if I don’t, I’m not going to get the product I want and I’m not going to get the experience I want. After they finish working with me, they get the moment where they let it out and are like, ‘that was fun and enjoyable, the people loved it’ or you get the moment in the middle of the ring, and this one is way more powerful, where you know we’re planning to do something and it’s really loud and the people are into it and excited, and they take a second because they feel it and you go, ‘Yeah, we did that together. You didn’t think this was going to happen. You thought this was going to be a task.’ Jeff Jarrett famously said, ‘Where is Eppy?’ He was calling me Eppy the first time before we met. When that is your starting point, where someone you’re supposed to be in a 50/50 feud with, you have a little work to do, but approaching everything with ‘we’re professional humans, we’re regular people, I know there is a storied history, but in this moment it’s Effy and you, we have to both make it look good,'” he said.

Effy is currently one half of the GCW Tag Team Champions alongside Allie Katch. Along with being a regular at GCW, Effy promotes Effy’s Big Gay Brunch annually as part of GCW The Collective. 

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