Jeff Jarrett says the WWF’s occupational gimmicks had run their course by 1996.
On My World with Jeff Jarrett, Jarrett said fans had moved on from characters built around jobs.
“The occupational gimmicks had run its course. It was been there, done that. It was, oh, he’s playing the role of that. It’s inauthentic,” Jarrett said.
He pointed to Kevin Nash’s run as Diesel.
“Oh, a truck driver’s world champ. No, that’s not gonna fly. It’s the same guy, a 6’11” legitimate athlete who played pro basketball, but he’s a truck driver. It did not resonate.”
“What worked in ’95 did not work in ’96.”
Jarrett said he tried to keep that in mind when he started TNA.
“If you don’t evolve and turn the prism and innovate, and that was the thing that, by the time I launched TNA, I tried to hammer in everybody’s brain. Now we had a lot of strikeouts, but some, you got base hits and doubles and singles and triples, and the X Division, I think, was a grand slam. You got to innovate.”
Transcription by Global Force Entertainment.