Jeff Jarrett Reveals How He Got Randy Savage Into TNA

The Jarrett and Poffo families go way back.

Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp (full interview above), Jeff Jarrett spoke about Macho Man Randy Savage and how he came to have his final wrestling match ever for TNA. First, however, Jarrett gave some backstory as to their history together. According to the WWE Hall of Famer, Randy never expected to do business with the Continental Wrestling Association, founded by Jerry Jarrett, after their rival promotion, International Championship Wrestling, which was founded by Randy’s father, went out of business. Jerry saw things differently, though, and knew it was a great opportunity to bring aboard a world-class talent. Here is what Jeff Jarrett had to say about the matter:

“You know, him and my father—and again, we’re from the same neck of the woods as we say in these parts, right?—but, no Randy Savage, and I’ll say the Poffos, go way back with the Jarretts, back into the 70s. [Randy before, pre-Macho Man, not long after his baseball days, but, it’s no secret, ICW back in those days, the territory wars if you will, or the term outlaw wrestling was used around.] But, anyhow, when that came to a head, when they went out of business, he expected my dad not to want to do business with him, but it was just the opposite. It was a great opportunity to do business.

So, at that time, probably the last person on earth that Randy thought would want to go into business with him was Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler. But, as fate would have it, they did get into business together and did some record box office at the time, right there—Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky, Mid-South Coliseum, all around the horn. So, that stage of Randy’s career, he did his Loser Leaves Town in Memphis and the next thing you know he’s working for Vince McMahon and the WWF. So, there’s a long, long history.”

Skipping ahead from the early 1980s, Randy Savage appeared in TNA Wrestling in 2004 after not having had a match since a May 2000 appearance on WCW Thunder. Savage confronted Jeff Jarrett at Victory Road in November and would have his final wrestling match ever just one month later at Turning Point, where he, AJ Styles, and Jeff Hardy defeated The Kings of Wrestling (Jarrett, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash). Jeff Jarrett said this about how it came to be:

“Fast forward 20 something years. TNA, we’d just gotten to Orlando, and Randy and my father had started having conversations. I’d grown up in dressing rooms and I’d been around Randy and Randy in ’90 / ’91 / ’92, he had come and done some shots as the Macho Man. As big a star as he was, he came back to quote-unquote the home territory. So, I’d known Randy since I was in high school, my daddy had worked with him for years and then at that stage in his career, you think about the Macho Man—and I don’t know if you could really call it a last match with all the great matches he had, but maybe one of his last wrestling appearances—but, at that time, and this is one of those footnotes that, candidly, when me and Conrad get into the real in-depth story, Randy had the Spider-Man movie going on, his acting career, he also had—people don’t know—he had his rap career that was going on.

So, when we get into those kinds of stories with Conrad, and me and Conrad have obviously had conversations off and on over the years about, ‘Jeff wants you to do it,’ and once Bruce came to work for us, he was like nudging me in the early days of Something to Wrestle With. So, it’s one of those things, persistence paid off. But, I’m just glad in a lot of ways that I didn’t say yes back then and now I am saying yes. But, the depths to the stories that we’re going to tell, and I appreciate you teeing it up to do a couple of previews. But, no, when we get into it there’s some fascinating stories about Randy and my father, and him there that day. It’s pretty cool. But, where Randy was at in life, not just the wrestling business, those kinds of stories will be told.”

Macho Man famously appeared in Sam Raimi’s 2002 film, Spider-Man, as Bonesaw. This was an homage to the fact that the first wrestling character Savage portrayed was named The Spider, and was very similar to the Marvel superhero. In 2003, Savage released his first rap album, titled ‘Be a Man.’

Savage sadly passed away in May 2011 at the age of 58.

Jeff Jarrett’s new podcast, My World, just debuted its first episode.