Jeff Jarrett Compares AEW To TNA
“It’s the best for business to always have an alternative.”
Since AEW’s inception in 2019, they have been compared to the likes of WCW, and TNA, both positively and negatively.
TNA founder Jeff Jarrett has been asked his thoughts on comparisons between the two, with Double J telling Cageside Seats:
“The natural, low-hanging fruit. the most simplistic is the alternative,” Jarrett began. “The similarity is that the alternative, at the very end of the day, I truly believe — and I think Vince McMahon would agree with this — it’s the best for business to always have an alternative. It’s just what makes business go around. If you’re the only game in town, you’re not number one because there isn’t a number two.
“The timing when TNA started, coming off the Attitude Era, and the timing when AEW started are radically different worlds. Pre-social media world coming off the Attitude Era. When TBS and TNT cancelled wrestling, I couldn’t even get a phone call from a network. Fast-forward, the big rights fees with NBC and Fox and the Peacock situation and Sony around the world in India and all the different markets — it’s a completely different playing field of 2002 and 2019 in the launch period. The climate is completely different. The television ratings are completely different. We started on a Saturday night on Spike TV in ‘05 or ‘06. Not prime, off prime. 11 eastern we were getting 700,000 or 800,000 viewers. On a Saturday night at late prime. The numbers were different. It was a pre-streaming world, a pre-social media world. When you factor in all that, it’s a completely different media market.”
