Jerry Winston Jarrett was an American businessman, professional wrestler, and promoter who lived from September 4, 1942, to February 14, 2023.
Jarrett played a significant role in the development of professional wrestling in the Mid-Southern region of the United States along with his longtime business partner Jerry Lawler.
He was inducted into the National Wrestling Alliance Hall of Fame in 2009 and was called a “wrestling genius.”
Who Was Jerry Jarrett? Legendary Wrestling Promoter Dead At 80
In 1977, Jarrett established the Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis, Tennessee. The United States Wrestling Association was founded in 1989 when Jarrett combined his company with World Class Championship Wrestling, which had its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. In 1997, Jarrett sold the organization to Lawler.
In 2002, he and his son Jeff Jarrett co-founded NWA:TNA, which was his second venture into promotion. Later that year, he sold his controlling stake to Panda Energy International. On September 4, 1942, Christine “Teeny” Jarrett (1923-1998) gave birth to Jarrett in Nashville, Tennessee.
When Jarrett was three years old, his parents split, and Christine started working as a ticket seller at the Nashville Hippodrome for Nick Gulas and Roy Welch, the NWA Mid-America promoters, to help support Jarrett and his sister.
Gulas and Welch gradually gave Christine more authority, and by the early 1970s, she was advertising their concerts in Indiana and Kentucky. Jarrett started marketing Gulas and Welch programs when he was seven years old.