Dixie Carter Talks About Spike TV Negotiations, Getting Put Through A Table

TNA President Dixie Carter was a guest on this week’s edition of Ring Rust Radio. Here are some highlights of what she said about:

What She’s Learned From Working With Wrestling Legends:

“From Hulk (Hogan) and Sting and Ric Flair, all of those guys, you talk about the truly great performers, Kurt (Angle). What they do is they just let go. They don’t think about it, they don’t worry about it, they just be their character, and they do what’s right for the company. I think when you play yourself— because I’m not playing Sanada, I’m not playing Tigre Uno or The Wolves— I’m playing the president of a company. I think for so long I just felt very business, presidential about it. It did take me just a beat to say, “You know what, you’re not really playing yourself now.” This is a caricature of someone who you’re really not and you just need to have fun with it, so that’s what I’ve tried to do.”

Getting Put Through A Table By Bully Ray:

“It hurt like hell. I have such mad respect for these men and women and what they do every time. I sit there as they come backstage and they’re warriors. I talk to professional football players and fighters and NBA guys, and they all tell me they could never do what these men and women do 52 weeks a year, no offseason, multiple times a week. People are like, “Is that table fake?” No, this stuff hurts, it hurts like hell. To be able to do what they do, it was just a small way of me paying respect for what they do for me personally and to our company and for the fans. So, it did hurt, you’ll just have to watch and see what really does happen and then maybe I’ll tell you how serious it was, but yes, I was injured.”

Changes She Wants To Make With TNA:

“I think if you look at us over the last six-to-nine months we’ve made more changes to our company that I think are really starting to resonate with our fans. Fans who may have left at some point and some people who are just now finding us, and that is really trying to listen to what our fans and viewers want to see. Bringing back the six-sided ring, that was a change. Letting the fans decide; if it had won by one vote or another it would have gone down as the fans’ decision. Instead we got a landslide and made the change. The introductions just in the last nine months I counted almost 15 new talents, either brand new or completely repackaged characters that we’ve interviewed in the last nine months. We did not do that in the last nine years. Excuse me, not nine years, maybe five or six years. Don’t hold me to the date, I don’t know the math, but I’m just telling you it was years and years and years. To see some of them doing so well and in such amazing, great roles and just knocking it out of the park every night I just couldn’t be more proud. I think we have undergone changes from the ring to the new characters on the show, how young our talent is to the way we’re trying to tell our stories right now to the way we’re going about focusing on the wrestling. I think that those have been tremendous changes. Are there more to come? Absolutely, but I’m really proud of all that we’ve accomplished in the past few months.”

TNA’s Negotiations With Spike TV:

“Every two years I go through this. This is just the first public negotiation I’ve ever had. I think social media has really changed this kind of thing. I’m used to every two years negotiating with Spike and negotiating with other networks. This time is absolutely not any different. We’re still talking with them, but there are other people, thank God, that are interested in our product. I want to grow this brand; I want to grow it domestically. I want us to be able to start having the kind of success domestically that we’re having internationally. I’m not going to stop and none of us are going to stop until we get there. I’m real excited to see and I think we’ll know sooner than later what’s going to happen.”

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