A new article by Thomas Golianopoulos on Grantland.com features insight into the current state of TNA Wrestling, what led the company to their current standing and more and features quotes from TNA President Dixie Carter, TNA founder Jeff Jarrett, AJ Styles, John Gaburick and more.
Highlights from the article are below:
Dixie Carter on Jeff Jarrett’s departure: “I will always give props to Jeff. Out of the thousands of wrestlers out there, he’s the only one who decided to create something with his own money, I have mad respect for that, always have and always will. I love Jeff as a person, I wish him and his precious family nothing but success.”
Dixie on AJ Styles’ departure: “I hate that we lost AJ. Are you listening? I hate it. I felt like we gave him a great offer, I really did. I felt like we gave him a great offer and I think he made a mistake.”
Dixie on people who hope the company goes out of business: “All these people say I hope you go out of business, why would you ever want that? You don’t think we make wrestling better just by exposing more people and giving people more options? It’s the most ludicrous, short-sighted thing, the sheer absurdity and stupidity of it blows my mind, I feel sorry for the wrestling business if we’re not around.”
AJ Styles on Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan’s regime: “I don’t think Eric and Hogan knew the roster at all, in fact, I don’t even know if they watched the show before they came in and if they did it had to be very little. No one knew who I was, no one knew who Samoa Joe was, we added Rob van Dam because everyone knows him.”
John Gaburick on the creative change he has instituted since coming into the company: “I think the audience was challenging us to give them something a little more straightforward, good old-fashioned wrestling instead of laborious talk or long, drawn-out stories. The long-form storylines that take forever to play out were not that effective.”
Other names interviewed include Jim Cornette, Vince Russo, Bobby Roode, Joey Ryan, Ethan Carter III and more. The article notes that Eric Bischoff was contacted, but declined to comment, stating that he can’t comment on TNA Wrestling at all. Meanwhile, Dixie Carter claimed that TMZ ran with their story that IMPACT Wrestling was cancelled by Spike TV, before she even saw their request for comment and later responded to TMZ that the two sides were still in negotiations, however that comment was never published.
The article is available in full at this link.
