Jeff Jarrett says USWA had become a WWF developmental territory by the time he worked there in 1996.
On My World with Jeff Jarrett, Jarrett was asked about the final months of the Memphis promotion, which his father, Jerry Jarrett, co-owned with Jerry Lawler.
“The glory days of the territory had been gone since the early, I mean, shoot, late ’80s. But by this point, it really was a WWF developmental territory. That’s what it was. There wasn’t any nostalgia, feel good that I had,” Jarrett said.
USWA ran its last weekly show at the Mid-South Coliseum in 1996.
“We just could not economically survive. We knew we weren’t going to get a new deal. We had to move to the Pipkin Building. We had a lot of nails going in the coffin for USWA because the business model no longer worked. Period.”
Jarrett said he left USWA in the summer of 1996 to get ready for WCW.
“At the very top would be, I got a WCW deal and wanted to get ready for that. This was, for lack of a better word, a WWF developmental area, and I was about to go to work for the enemy, and I think it was time for me to move on. I think it was that simple.”
Transcription by Global Force Entertainment.