Jeff Jarrett Talks Piracy And Pro Wrestling, How He Sees GFW Differentiating Itself, More
- Jeff Jarrett recently spoke with PW Pop to discuss Global Force Wrestling and more. The full interview can be heard at this link. Below are highlights sent in:
What he learned during the early days of TNA that will help with the launch of Global Force Wrestling:
"You know what, I remember those we referred to them as "The Asylum Days" every Wednesday night in the Nashville Sports Arena. A lot of fun. It was two hours of live programming it was run and gun, If things mess up or you make a mistake you don't have time to even think about it you just have to keep blowing and going. A lot of fun during those times. But not only in TNA, my whole career?Obviously my family has been in the promotion business dating back almost 70 years.The world has changed . And you have to adapt to that. That's why last April , I just wanted to come out with the name of the company in that it takes a lot of time to create brand awareness and you have to take it step-by-step. And as my attorneys have told me and I've said in previous interviews it's a marathon not a sprint"
Where he sees Global Force differentiating itself in the increasingly crowded wrestling landscape:
"At the end of the day, I was just referring to creating that brand awareness and taking it step-by-step. Well, you have to have that patience. On the flipside of that is consumer, viewer, wrestling fan engagement. We are going to be very engaged . Not just daily but hourly with our fans.You've got so many social media platforms Some people are on Twitter, some people are on Facebook. Some people are on certain ones, you have to engage them all. That would be something to go with professional wrestling. Every popular television show now from The Voice to America's Got Talent or Game of Thrones or whatever may be has a high level of viewer engagement. So that's at the top of our priorities. But as far as bell to bell, we want to put out the best professional wrestling. Very athletic.Very competitive. What WWE does, they are the leader in the marketplace.What they do is sports entertainment and they do it better than anyone else. We want to put out professional wrestling and connect fan bases from AAA in Mexico to Japan to Europe, South Africa, Australia etc.. We want to connect the fan bases from all around the globe under one umbrella. And that's what wrestling fans, because I am a pro-wrestling fan like to do they like to talk about their favorites from this promotion or that promotion. And that's what we're excited to do."
Piracy in the 21st century and what it meant for Global Force Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 9 Pay-Per-View:
"There's no doubt it happens with Wrestlemania. I know for a fact it happened in mass to New Japan WrestleKingdom 9. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in. The music business has been hit harder by that than any other business I know of. It is something that you have to strategize and figure out and move on because you're not going to stop piracy. Unfortunately that's the downside to technology. But there's a lot of upside to technology in the fact that the fanbases can go online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and watch wrestling from literally all around the globe. You can hop on YouTube, hop on WWE Network, hop on all the other platforms, and that excites me about the interest in pro wrestling. The downside, one of my guys talked to me about Wrestle Kingdom 9 and how many people used bittorrent sites for theft. He said the downside is a lot of people stole it. But the good side is, a lot of people wanted to steal it. So , you've got to sort of take the good with the bad. You have to figure out how you can strategize, progress and move through the piracy issues."