Jeff Jarrett Recalls How DDP Yoga Was Inspired By WCW Title Match
The DDP Yoga brand created by WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page was inspired in part by a WCW Championship Match, according to Jeff Jarrett.
Jarrett, who is also a WWE Hall of Famer, explained that DDP created DDP Yoga to help deal with injuries that DDP sustained during his career. Following his career, DDP dedicated his life to DDP Yoga while helping many former and current wrestlers (like new NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa) along the way.
On a recent episode of his My World Podcast, available on AdFreeShows, Jarrett spoke about how a match inspired DDP Yoga. The match was at WCW Slamboree 2000 in a “Ready to Rumble” Triple Cage match with the WCW World Title on the line. The match featured then WCW Champion David Arquette (who won the title in a tag team match on WCW Thunder) facing Jarrett and DDP.
Jarrett explained how it was a tough match to do while noting that DDP was injured during the preparation for the match.
“We both knew we had our work cut out. The triple cage is a great concept. Dealing with this triple cage and how we were going to make sense of it and just the storyline of it with David, a non-wrestler, but the belt being hung. If you’re familiar with DDP Yoga, I’m about to tell you folks this in a lot of ways is where the origins of where DDP Yoga came from. We were walking through the match and having the discussion.”
“There’s one level, two level, three levels, but there’s a hole in the cage up between the first and second level. Dallas backed up and one of his legs dropped straight through the top, so half his body went down. It really threw his hips and back and threw him out of whack, and he’s got to have a match in 24 hours. He went to work and flew in his doctor. He was coming off a back injury. DDP Yoga, I won’t say it’s the origin of it, but it’s certainly a huge step in the progression of Dallas really wanting to change how he dealt with his body. To this day, I do DDP Yoga. I’m a huge fan. I’m a big supporter of it and a big believer of it.”
Jarrett talked about the final part of the match while noting that the match took place in the same building in Kansas City where Owen Hart lost his life one year earlier.
“Me and Dallas were both climbing each corner of the small cage on top, and Arquette had already got up there and there’s a guitar in his hand. Is he going to nail DDP or me?’ That was the story. He chose to nail Dallas, and I climbed on up. We shook hands, I grabbed the belt, and I’m the champion again. That was the finish, the storyline. I could remember getting real comfortable up there on top, and me and Dallas had a good brawl. It’s not the easiest psychology to lay out, but I was comfortable. Dallas was comfortable.
“We laid out the best match possible. We were instructed that Kanyon had to take the bump off the top. To jump right into it. Owen fell the year before. I didn’t really, at the time, certainly go there or connect the dots. I can remember specifically thinking, do we really have to have Kanyon [jump off the top]? It just felt like a big payoff match, like telling too much stories. It was such a protected bump through boxes and all that stuff. People seeing it live we’re not going to [react heavily], and even if they would’ve bought into it, then you distract from the finish of the match. It was a lose/lose situation, and I can remember thinking that and probably voicing that to Dallas that day.”
The big story there, as explained by Jarrett, is that Arquette turned heel by hitting his friend DDP with the guitar to help Jarrett win the match and the WCW World Title. There were a lot of WCW World Title changes during this period.
H/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.