Jeff Jarrett

Jeffrey Leonard Jarrett (born July 14, 1967) is an American professional wrestler and promoter.

He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he also serves as Director of Business Development.

He also wrestled with the American Wrestling Association (AWA) and the Continental Wrestling Federation (CWF) in the late 1980s.

Beginning his career in his father Jerry Jarrett's Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) in 1986, Jarrett first came to prominence upon debuting with a country music star gimmick in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 1993.

Over the next nine years, he alternated between the WWF and its main competitor, World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

Born in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Jarrett became involved with basketball while attending Goodpasture Christian School, but he worked for his father Jerry Jarrett's Continental Wrestling Association as a referee in March 1986 and trained as a wrestler under his father and Tojo Yamamoto.

Jarrett made his in-ring debut at the age of 18 on April 6, 1986, when jobber Tony Falk attempted to end his lengthy losing streak by challenging Jarrett, then a referee, to a match.

Jarrett accepted the challenge, wrestling Falk to a 10-minute draw.

Jarrett is a third-generation wrestler: his father wrestled, as did his maternal grandfather, Eddie Marlin, while his paternal grandmother, Christine, was employed by Nashville-based wrestling promoters Nick Gulas and Roy Welch.

In 1989, his father Jerry purchased the Texas-based World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) promotion and merged it with the CWA to create the United States Wrestling Association (USWA).

Over the following years, Jarrett won the USWA Southern Heavyweight Championship on 10 occasions and the USWA World Tag Team Championship on 15 occasions.

Jarrett also wrestled on the independent circuit for seven years, appearing in Japan and Puerto Rico.

In 1990, he wrestled his first tour of Japan for Super World Sports (SWS).

Jarrett's first involvement with World Wrestling Federation (WWF) came on August 9, 1992, when he participated in the kick-off to the first cross-promotional angle between the WWF and the USWA.

Sitting at ringside along with Jerry Lawler at the WWF house show that was being held at the Memphis Pyramid, he issued an open challenge to any WWF wrestler.

After defeating Kamala by disqualification that night, Bret Hart accepted Jarrett's challenge for a match the next time that the WWF came to Memphis.

Beginning in October, Jarrett himself began making appearances on WWF house show events, defeating Mondo Kleen (who would later debut as Damian Demento) and Barry Horowitz.

At a WWF Wrestling Challenge taping in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 28, Jarrett scored his biggest victory of his nascent WWF career by upsetting Rick Martel.

However, the scheduled match between Bret Hart and Jarrett on October 31 in Memphis was cancelled due to poor weather.

Following the cancelled Memphis show, he returned to the USWA.

Nearly a year later, Jarrett returned to the World Wrestling Federation.

Jarrett would continue wrestling for USWA full-time until losing the championship to Jerry Lawler on December 20, 1993, but return sporadically for future dates.

He made his televised return on October 23, 1993, on WWF Superstars as a heel under the gimmick of "Double J" Jeff Jarrett, a country music singer who intended to elevate his singing career through his exposure as a wrestler.

Jarrett's character would strut to the ring wearing flashing "Double J" hats and ring attire, while he punctuated his promos with the phrase "Ain't I great?".

He ended his interviews by distinctly spelling out his name ("That's J-E-Double-F, J-A-Double-R, E-Double-T!").

He would often win matches by smashing opponents with an acoustic guitar, which was nicknamed "El Kabong" after the cartoon character Quick Draw McGraw.

Jarrett had his first televised match with the WWF on the December 20, 1993, episode of Raw, defeating PJ Walker.

Jarrett made his pay-per-view debut in January 1994 at the Royal Rumble, entering the Royal Rumble match as the 12th participant and was eliminated less than 90 seconds later by Randy Savage.

Also at the Royal Rumble, Jarrett participated in attacking The Undertaker and forcing him into the casket, an incident that would be a focal point in Undertaker's rematch later that year.

Jarrett was scheduled to wrestle in a five vs. five tag match at WrestleMania X, but the match did not take place due to time constraints.

However, the match did take place on the April 4 episode of Raw, with Jarrett's team winning.

During this time, Jarrett started having what would be a very long string of matches with Doink (Ray Apollo) during house shows in which he usually won the match.

After WCW was purchased by the WWF in 2001, Jarrett joined the upstart World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) promotion.

In 2002, Jarrett and his father together founded NWA: Total Nonstop Action (NWA-TNA) (later known as Impact Wrestling and now known as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling).

After departing the promotion in 2014, Jarrett founded another new promotion, Global Force Wrestling (GFW).

After a failed merger of TNA and GFW, he cut ties with TNA.

He was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame in 2015 and the WWE Hall of Fame in 2018.

Jarrett then wrestled in Mexico for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide before returning to WWE in January 2019 as an on-screen talent and producer.

He departed WWE once more in August 2022, making his debut with AEW that November.

A third-generation wrestler, Jarrett has had over 80 championship reigns throughout his career, among them the NWA World Heavyweight Championship (six times), WCW World Heavyweight Championship (four times), and AAA Mega Championship (twice).