Tufayel Ahmed of The Mirror in the UK is featuring an interview with TNA President Dixie Carter where she talks about Spike TV publicly dropping Impact Wrestling, negotiating a new television deal with the company in the headlines and the upcoming relaunch of the Impact Wrestling brand as part of Destination America on 1/7 and the sudden use of former TNA talent on WWE programming over the last few years.
If she would describe 2014 as a “difficult” year for TNA:
“I think people say it’s difficult because this is the first time I’ve negotiated a television contract so publicly. There’s all kinds of questions and doubts out there, and rumours that aren’t true. I go through this every two years and have never had the public spotlight on the company, especially in any kind of negative way. When you’re going through television negotiations, you can’t give that out publicly, it’s a private, confidential negotiation. I can’t respond to negativity or even anything positive being said, that’s not good business. It’s very difficult for me to sit back and hear these negative things being said, but all I can do is say to myself, ‘I know what’s going on, I know what’s going to happen, and when it comes out everyone else will know as well.’ You can’t let yourself be brought down by those negative conversations.”
On Destination America not being very well known:
“Destination America isn’t as well known, but Discovery is as well known or better well known, not only in the United States but globally. That’s the reason we did the negotiations and the deal with them. This is bigger than just Destination America, it has global implications. We’re going to help grow Destination America domestically, that’s a huge priority for Discovery, and when that happens it’s going to have such a big upside for us on every level. It’s not an apple-to-apples deal. It’s not one two-hour show played once a week, now we have a two-hour show that’s played multiple times, we have multiple shows that are going to be announced, it’s a completely different type of deal that has much more upside than what we had before.”
On the upcoming debut of Impact Wrestling on 1/7 on Destination America:
“Our first show, which is live, will be similar to what we’ve done in the past. There’ll be a few new bells and whistles but it’ll be similar because there’s only so much you can do live because you don’t have the post-production time to dive into unique, different production aspects. But if you give us a few weeks, I think everyone will start to see a transition of very new and very exciting ways to watch Impact. I don’t want to say too much, I’d rather it just unveil itself. I’m definitely excited about some of the changes coming up.”
On former TNA talent now showing up on WWE programming:
“For so many years, I’ve caught so much negative flack, people saying that all we do is hire WWE people. The truth of the matter is, if you look at the WWE roster of late, they’re full of TNA talent even if that means a Sting, Hulk Hogan or a Rob Van Dam, Ric Flair. That’s a passé complaint. When you only have two leagues there’s only so many talent that you can find that are on a worldwide level. I think the tide has turned and WWE is taking our talent of late, not the reverse of that. It’s just the way it’s been.”
You can check out the full interview at the link below.
The Mirror: TNA President Dixie Carter reflects on 2014: ‘It HASN’T been a difficult year’