Jeff Jarrett thinks WWE may have shown fans something they were better off never seeing. The company pulled back the curtain on how its future wrestlers are taught to cut promos, and Jarrett isn’t convinced exposing that process does the WWE brand any favors.
Speaking on the My World podcast, Jarrett reacted to footage WWE released from its SummerSlam week tryouts, where NXT head writer Johnny Russo was shown coaching prospective talent on their promos.
Russo told wrestlers to speak naturally, stop relying on generic lines about dreams and hard work, and find something that actually separates them from everybody else trying to get signed. Jarrett wasn’t knocking Russo. Quite the opposite.
“Johnny Russo is super talented, super creative. I’ve worked with him, you know, not closely, but in the writer’s room. Everything he was giving right there is valuable, really valuable information, but there is a point-counterpoint to everything. I believe in that format they opened themselves up, whoever made that decision, for just open season to slice and dice any and everybody that appeared on that camera, and then the promotion as well.”
Conrad Thompson asked whether Jarrett’s issue was simply that wrestling shouldn’t show fans “how the sausage is made.” That sent Jarrett back to something his father, Jerry Jarrett, used to do for fun whenever wrestling fans recognized them at drive-thrus.
“Because it’s how the sausage is made. For those that believe that saying, no explanation is needed. For those that don’t believe, no explanation will do. It’s the thing, you know, old man used to have fun going through the drive-thrus. ‘Hey, aren’t y’all wrestlers?’ as they’re delivering our food. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ‘Do y’all use real blood or fake blood?’ You can look them straight in the eye and say, ‘It’s 100% fake. Actually, can I have some ketchup packets? I gotta mix that with vinegar because we’ve got a big bloodbath tonight.’ They’ll look you in the eye and say, ‘Oh, bullshit. Yeah, I’ve seen it. That’s real blood.’”
Then Jerry would come through the same drive-thru another week and completely change the answer. It still didn’t matter.
“You can pull through the exact same drive-thru the following week with the same people and they say, ‘Yeah, y’all get any blood?’ ‘Oh yeah, it’s real blood. It just, you know, it happens.’ ‘[Bullshit]. That never happens. Y’all use ketchup. I know it. My cousin Martha said it’s ketchup.’”
By week three, Jarrett said his father could finally tell them what wrestlers were actually doing—and they’d reject that explanation too.
“Okay. Then the third week you drive through there. ‘Oh, y’all, what about that blood and everything?’ ‘Oh no, we have these little razor blades. We cut—’ ‘Ain’t no way nobody would do that. You’re trying to tell me that people actually cut themselves? That’s self-mutilation. F off. That don’t happen.’”
That story gets to the heart of Jarrett’s problem with pulling back wrestling’s curtain. Fans have always known professional wrestling occupies a strange place between reality and entertainment. You can tell them something is fake and they’ll swear it’s real. Tell them it’s real and they’ll insist you’re working them. Sometimes giving them the answer doesn’t actually make anything better.
“It just—what we do is different. And I just show me another form of this kind of entertainment. So, am I a fan of not how the sausage is made? I can’t really say that as a blanket statement.”
His concern is much simpler. WWE put aspiring wrestlers on camera while they’re still learning how to become WWE stars. Russo’s advice may have been valuable, but Jarrett believes making that process public also gave fans an open invitation to dissect everyone involved.
“I just think it opens up criticism. And is that positive for the brand?”
WWE released the SummerSlam tryout footage to give fans a look behind the curtain. Jarrett watched it and came away wondering whether the curtain was there for a reason. Russo’s coaching wasn’t his problem—the decision to turn the lesson itself into content was.
Do you think WWE showed fans too much with its promo-training footage, or is this exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes access the company should be releasing? Let us know in the comments.
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