After defeating QT Marshall on the Zero Hour of World’s End, Jeff Jarrett had a promo in which he said he would make a major announcement on his career at the Fight for the Fallen episode of AEW Dynamite on New Years Day.
With a cherry red guitar in the ring and carrying his cherry red boots over his shoulder, Jarrett walked into the ring with cherry red Nike’s and wished everyone a “Slappy” New Year.
After giving everyone details of the history of the Jarrett family in wrestling, Jeff Jarrett announced that his big decision wasn’t retirement but his final professional wrestling contract before retiring. Jarrett said he did it for one last ride to get a chance at AEW gold.
“I’m not talking Trios title. I’m not talking Tag Title. I’m talking about taking the biggest risk of my career; and hell yeah I could fall flat on my face. Hell next week there’s a gauntlet: put my ass in it. Because I’m here to say: January 1st, 2025. The Last Outlaw, his new year’s resolution, is I want to become the AEW World Heavyweight Champion!”
Back in September I wrote Jeff Jarrett Survives, where I said I never could believe Jeff Jarrett saying he would retire. Not then, and honestly not now. I didn’t buy it that he was announcing his retirement, and while he did essentially announce the end of the road for him in a final pro wrestling contract, I doubt this will be the last of Double J.
I saw people online after Dynamite worry about the idea of Jeff Jarrett winning the AEW World Championship. I saw people saying they didn’t trust that AEW would just go ahead and put the belt on Jeff because why not they’ve put it on every other old guy. CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, heck Adam Copeland is likely next in line to face Jon Moxley and Christian Cage has an Instashot. AEW has no issue being a senior’s league.
But those same people forget the other two times Jeff Jarrett has made a promise. He promised to win the Owen for his late friend Owen Hart, in the tournament named after him. He cried on camera, quoted Toby Keith (also deceased), and said he ain’t as good as he once was but he’s as good once as he ever was.
He lost. In the first round.
Jarrett lost to Hangman Adam Page, which led to Jarrett deciding he’d be a thorn in Page’s side and prevent him from winning the AEW Men’s World Championship. He was the guest referee in the Owen final between Page and Bryan Danielson. He got in Page’s way in the Casino Gauntlet at All In London 2024. And he made a promise.
“If it’s the last thing I do in my career? Some how, some way, some place, The Last Outlaw is going to kick your ass!”
Jarrett challenged Page to a Lumberjack Strap match at AEW Collision: Grand Slam. Jeff Jarrett lost. No ass was kicked.
That’s twice Jeff Jarrett has made promises he couldn’t keep. Now he’s about to make a third.
I’m sure some people will say that it erodes the support of the fans if a babyface makes promises and doesn’t keep them. If a babyface guarantees something then it’s gotta happen, right?
But as I said on Jeff Jarrett Survives, in quoting Blade Runner 2049, dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do. And nobody needs a martyr quite as much as The Death Riders.
The Death Riders have gone completely off course. They were once challenging the Day One AEW Originals to rise up. I explained it was all a lie but it was at least a lie they were riding. Then Moxley defends the AEW Men’s World Championship against two AEW Originals and a former IWGP World Champion, with one of those originals being a former AEW Men’s World Champion himself.
Now Moxley is tied up with FTR and Adam Copeland, none of which are AEW Originals, and it’s essentially just circumstances finding them circling each other. It doesn’t make sense for the narrative being told, nor would it make sense for the man to finally topple Jon Moxley being Double J Jeff Jarrett just to pop a house in Tennessee.
No, the goal of this isn’t for Jeff Jarrett to win the champion. It’s for Jeff Jarrett to miss ever so close and help extend the heat of Jon Moxley and the Death Riders. They could do the show in Memphis if they wanted to get as much heat as possible. Beat the local legend on his last kick at the can.
For anyone still stuck on Jarrett calling his shot? He wasn’t the only person on the show who called their shot for the AEW Men’s World Championship on Dynamite. Someone else did too: Maxwell Jacob Friedman.
So what’s the story? That every single wrestler who announces their intentions to win the AEW Men’s World Championship gets a crack at it just because they say so? Or is this no different to any sports athlete declaring they want to win the championship? It wouldn’t be realistic if the only time someone said they wanted to become champion meant they were automatically now in line to win it one day.
You can complain that this is, “establishing a story you have no intention of completing” but that’s only if you believe that every person who declares to want to be champion is automatically deserving of it. Every dragon protecting a castle with a fair maiden inside has in front of them the charred remains of all those who tried and failed to rescue. If you want this to feel like a sport? Sports fans are used to seeing 29-31 teams fail every season to win the championship. You’re getting hysterical over one not doing it.
So don’t put so much stock into the words of an old legend. Especially an old legend with a career full of unfulfilled promises, lies, and empty intentions. He’s The Last Outlaw not The Next Hero.
In a way, I don’t even want to tell you this because it’s better if you do fall for it and get to feel the process of seeing false hero after false hero lose to Jon Moxley, only for one man to emerge and finally climb that mountain and cast the Death Riders into the abyss below.
Unfortunately, AEW fans have a tendency to overreact to every bit of new information they hear, and think for some reason Tony Khan is going to do for Jeff Jarrett he never did for Sting. I guess that’s what happens when you lose the fans confidence in your product, but it feels more like fans becoming the precogs of Minority Report and arresting AEW for precrimes they’ve yet to, if they ever do, commit.
