Jeff Jarrett has heard the story for years, and now he’s making it clear he doesn’t see it the way wrestling fans have repeated it.
While speaking to Ariel Helwani, Jarrett addressed the long-running claim that he held up Vince McMahon for money before dropping the Intercontinental Championship to Chyna in 1999. Ariel brought up the old version of the story, where Jarrett allegedly asked Vince for $100,000, then bumped it up to $200,000 before going out for the match. Jarrett didn’t dodge it. He walked through the whole mess, starting with where his WWE run was at the time.
“Let’s call it the spring of ’99. I had Miss Debra and Miss Kitty — that’s kind of one parallel because of Owen’s passing. I become Intercontinental Champion.”
At that point, Jarrett said everything was colliding at once. His contract was coming up, Chyna was being positioned for her first major singles match, DX was hot, and Vince McMahon was busy taking WWE public. That left Jim Ross handling Jarrett’s contract talks, and Jarrett wasn’t happy with the offer.
“Me and Jim, we go back a long way. He’s worked with me in NJPW and stuff, but in that time, he had to keep the roster happy, and I’ll say it wasn’t in favor of ol’ Double J. He was playing hardball, and I didn’t like the offer.”
That is where the timing got wild. Jarrett said his contract expired on a Saturday, while WWE had already advertised him for a pay-per-view match against Chyna the very next day. Creative had one plan, talent relations had another problem, and Jarrett suddenly had leverage.
“The right hand being creative, the left hand being talent relations, and Vince not there for the most part — they kind of put themselves in a unique position that worked in my favor.”
Jarrett said he already knew by September that Ross wasn’t going to move on the contract, so he made a deal with WCW through J.J. Dillon. Once that was done, he walked into the pay-per-view as champion with one question in mind: how does he make sure WWE pays him what he believes he was owed?
He said Vince tried calling him before the show, but Jarrett ignored the calls because his WCW deal was already done.
“So I walked into the building on Sunday, and Vince called me on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I didn’t pick up on purpose because I’d already done the deal, and he probably knew. Vince is a hell of a salesman, and also I didn’t want to throw shade because the deal was done. If Vince wanted me so bad, he should’ve called a month before.”
Once Jarrett got to the building, he told Terry Taylor and Jim Ross exactly what he wanted. He had three pay-per-views in the pipeline, and once he left that night, he knew his leverage was gone.
“I said, ‘You guys know this business as well as I do. I’ve got three pay-per-views in the pipeline. I’d like to get paid tonight because when I leave tonight, I’ve got zero leverage, and you guys give me zero payoff. I have no legal recourse. I want my money tonight.’”
Ross went to Vince, came back, and told Jarrett they had a deal. But Jarrett said there was one more issue, and it went back to his wife’s breast cancer and a pay cut he felt WWE gave him unfairly during a painful time in his life.
“I talked about how my wife got breast cancer. I said, ‘Linda McMahon came to you and said Jeff can be on TV, but he’s not to make one house show. Not one. I don’t want to interfere. He needs to be home.’”
Jarrett said that because he wasn’t working house shows, he didn’t meet his downside number, and WWE cut his pay the next year. That memory was still sitting with him when Ross came back with the first offer. So Jarrett fired back with his own move.
“I said, ‘I have a sick wife, and you’re gonna cut my pay? It wasn’t my doing. So you’re reneging on the deal.’ Well, Jim, we came to an agreement. I’m reneging on this.’”
That is when he told Ross to double the number. Jarrett said Ross never directly asked if he would refuse to drop the title without the money, and Jarrett insists he never said that either. Jarrett said Vince eventually approved it, handed him the check at the venue, and even told him to go out and deliver.
“He never asked me, ‘Are you telling me if you don’t get this money, you won’t drop the title?’ He handed me the check, and he said, ‘I appreciate you doing business today. Now go kill ’em.’”
Jarrett said he immediately ran to lock the check in his car before the match. Road Dogg saw him and asked what he was doing, and Jarrett had a simple answer: “I said, ‘Going to lock this in the car.’”
For Jarrett, that is the part of the story people keep twisting. He says he didn’t hold Vince up. He says he used the leverage WWE gave him, got paid before he lost all bargaining power, and still went out to do business with Chyna: “So that’s the story. I didn’t hold him up.”
Then Jarrett shut down the old narrative one more time, saying he respected both Vince and the business enough to do the match.
“The narrative is I walked out and held Vince up. No, I didn’t. I didn’t have to do the job, but I respected Vince and the business, and he could’ve gone to the arena and not paid me.”
Jarrett’s version doesn’t make the story any less messy, but it does change the framing. In his mind, this wasn’t a wrestler hijacking a pay-per-view. It was a contract dispute, a badly timed expiration date, and one last chance to get money he believed WWE already owed him.
Do you believe Jeff Jarrett’s side of the story about Vince McMahon and the Chyna match? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
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