On a recent edition of his “My World” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett discussed TNA’s repackaging of Samoa Joe and signing Jenna Morasca from Survivor in 2009.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On TNA signing Jenna Morasca: “That was — obviously, you’re kind of voicing those opinions [that fans expressed]. It was rampant. And it was a thing that — there was always that kind of discussion. Survivor, yes, it’s a CBS/Paramount product. But she just didn’t hit our demo, if you will. And yes, okay. If she’s not in our demo, we want to go outside it. And yeah, she’s what she said, swimsuit model and Survivor and all that. But bringing value to the product, that was always the question that I’ll just say, the creative room would say, ‘Okay can she –‘ And I’m not saying actually wrestle match, but that’s where we’re heading. ‘What can she do? Can she — what’s her offense, what’s your defense?’ Well, let me backup. ‘Was she physically involved? Can she cut a promo?’ Those are the first two questions. And, bless her heart Connie. No to both.”
On TNA repacking Samoa Joe in 2009: “I remember it as being a group call. And me, as — I call it the leader in the room — I kept kind of telling folks, ‘Nothing is permanent. We can tweak this along the way. We’re probably not going to come out of the gate.’ But we all knew — and again, I’m gonna go back to, when you have a year and a half. That’s a long time that we pushed Joe with never losing a match. And the trilogy that he had with Kurt, and him finally losing. It’s a kind of a natural letdown.
“Well, now here we are — what, two years after that? We were just trying to tweak. And there was never a time creatively that we’re like — I mean Joe, he’s not just good. He’s great, and his facials are good. And we were just trying to tweak it. We knew we didn’t hit a home run coming out of the gate with this on the tweaks and tweaking, if you will, of Joe’s character. No, we had a couple of SNAFUs along the way, to put it lightly.”
