Jeff Jarrett also revealed that he was optimistic about signing Bret Hart to TNA after “The Hitman’s” appearances in Australia. 

“And the reason I had, I guess you could say, even more confidence, was because he did those Australian tours that I was on. He flew over to Australia and would come out and do promos and all that. So Bret wasn’t — he certainly wasn’t opposed to working outside of WWE at all,” said the Hall of Famer. 

Jarrett involved other TNA executives in efforts to bring Hart into the promotion, but to no avail.

“But every time we would kind of get serious or close, for one reason or another, it would stall. And I wasn’t the only one — Scott D’Amore, Jeremy Borash, others had relationships with him and all that. But I think it would ultimately come down to him making a decision — Am I going to go work for Jeff? And I think, at the very end of the day, he always had hope and optimism — ‘I’m going to go back to WWE, and everything’s going to be all right.'”

Jarrett said he wanted to give Hart the freedom to choose what he wanted to do, whether that be to step into the ring once again or just get on the mic. He feels that WWE may have wanted him to wrestle as part of the deal, which he wasn’t adamant on asking Hart to do.