Jeff Jarrett discusses the history of 'The Asylum'.
The Tennessee State Fairground Sports Arena is a special building that has a great deal of wrestling history attached to it dating back decades ago to when wrestling promoter Nick Gulas ran shows out of it in the 50's. WWE Hall Of Famer Jeff Jarrett also has a strong connection to 'The Asylum' because his father Jerry Jarrett was a wrestling promoter in Tennessee and worked with the National Wrestling Alliance who presented shows in Nashville. Jeff Jarrett also ran television tapings and pay-per-views out of 'The Asylum' when he was running TNA.
Jeff Jarrett has created plenty of memories in 'The Asylum' and he reflected on those while being interviewed by 'Inside The Ropes' prior to NWA's 70th Anniversary Show.
“Maybe not the first night but I know every Wednesday, how we were building it - the match that I had against Raven. That was built and they were lined up starting at 3 or 4 in the afternoon." He continued, "AJ Styles, in my opinion, that’s the building that he really came into his own because he just blossomed and continued to get better and continued to get better. Bobby Roode, I remember the first time I met him in the back of that building. It was like, ‘How are you not signed?’ I could not believe that he wasn’t signed. To me, he was pretty polished when we got him." Jarrett said of Roode. "But to me, those memories of The Asylum days, the weekly pay-per-views, the go-position and the production and how we made that arena look and I remember many times people would come in there after we got rolling and they’d look around and they’d go, ‘This is really The Asylum? It really is’. It’s the Fairgrounds Arena but we made it look much bigger than it was on TV; the production shots, the quality. So any one memory from the first show, I just was glad that it made air, and it looked the way it did but over the weeks and months that we were there the AJ matches, the Raven storyline. Man, there was some great nights in there. I’ll tell you what, if there’s one memory that people ask me about, it's the night we debuted Jeff Hardy. That’s the loudest I've ever heard that building." Jarrett shared. "People were shocked and they literally stood on their feet for a good five-to-seven minutes - just go back and watch it on tape, thunderous applause. They could not believe Hardy was in the house."
As mentioned, NWA's 70th Anniversary show occurred on October 21st and Fightful had live coverage of that show and to read up on what went down on it, click here. Jeff Jarrett was present on the PPV to play his part in presenting the NWA National Heavyweight Championship.
If you are going to use the quote above, please credit 'Inside The Ropes' with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
