Anthem Sports & Entertainment, which officially announced that they acquired TNA yesterday, has reached a deal with Jeff Jarrett to bring him back in a behind the scenes consulting role, according to PWInsider. Jarrett will be at this week’s TNA tapings along with his wife Karen Jarrett.
TNA has also reportedly reached a deal with Dutch Mantel, better known for his WWE role as Zeb Colter. Mantel will also play a behind the scenes role and has been described as one of Jeff Jarrett’s “top lieutenants” in the past.
Jeff Jarrett, who was one of the original founders of TNA, resigned from his position as “Executive Vice President of Development/Original Programming” in December 2013. Jarrett went on to form Global Force Wrestling while still a minority stakeholder in TNA, which reportedly angered Dixie Carter. Carter eventually acquired Jarrett’s shares in 2014, which gave her 100% ownership in the company. One PWInsider source claims that Jarrett’s return is confirmation that Dixie Carter is “done” with any major decision making, since she and Jarrett did not get along and she would have never allowed Jarrett to return.
Global Force Wrestling will apparently continue as usual and is still trying to find a TV deal. According to Dave Meltzer, Anthem Sports & Entertainment is expected to assist Jarrett in finding a TV deal for GWF, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be on their network, Fight Network, which is only available in Canada.