In defense of Dixie

[saintpat]

Yeah, she comes off as a ditz and she does deserve a lot of what she gets, but I thought there should be room for one thread to discuss the other side of the story.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Dixie mark, sugs, but there's at least a semblance of a case to be made that maybe she's not the complete horror show she has been portrayed as being. And if I get my facts wrong, please feel free to correct me, as I didn't exactly research this as if it was a college dissertation with a degree riding on it.

So here are some points ot consider:

1) Dixie bought the majority share of TNA in its infancy back in the ealry 2000s when it was barely a thing, small shows and weekly low-rent PPVs under JJ's management. She did so because HealthSouth -- kind of the Enron of its day, a medical/hospital company that was actually some sort of fraud/pyramid scheme that made untold millions for some people who are still in jail -- pulled out as a major investor. JJ came to her because they didn't have the money and TNA was close to dying before it was out of diapers.

2) Dixie went to her rich parents and Panda Energy bought it on the cheap (although paying a quarter million for TNA at that time was probably like doing the same for a local indy today, give or take). Suddenly, the little remnant of WCW had funding beyond what it ever would have had before.

3) Within a few years, Dixie had a TV contract for TNA (FoxSports) and the promotion was doing 'real' PPVs once a month, not weekly $5 wrestling shows.

4) When the original TV deal ended, Dixie got the deal with Spike -- one of the best business moves pulled off by a wrestling promotion not named WWE in modern times, because not only did Spike provide a solid cable TV outlet, it partnered with the promotion and invested in it to the point of funding contracts of some big-name folks that TNA couldn't have afforded otherwise, including headliner Kurt Angle.

5) Talent acquisition was a strong point of TNA, from building around AJ Styles for a long time to bringing in names like Angle, Lashley, Christian, keeping Sting, and a lot of guys who were lesser known but had great talent (many of whom went on to bigger things) like Punk, Christopher Daniels and others. Not saying Dixie scouted these people, but she obviously trusted some people with a good eye considering how many super talents came through.

6) Ushered in a new era of women's wrestling with real talent and good matches long before WWE.

7) I'll skip ahead, but she has managed to keep the company alive despite two major step-downs in TV deals since Spike, and has found infusions of cash by any means after Panda/Pop/Mom withdrew their financial support.

Now I don't think TNA has been well-run, but few wrestling companies ever have been -- look at WCW, which went from the dregs to kicking WWF's fanny like a soccer ball to complete failure due to bad business decisions. Look at how many others have tried and failed to last this long, or to even get near the level of Triple-A to WWE's major league status. Few, if any, others have managed to get overseas TV deals and do regular tours abroad successfully.

My belief is this: No Dixie and TNA would have tied a very quiet death a long time ago and we'd get an occasional "Remember that TNA thing?" Thread on the Rest of Wrestling forum about twice a year with three or four responses. It never would have gone anywhere without the infusion of Panda Cash, and that's Dixie's deal. It never would have made it to Spike and it certainly wouldn't be alive (albeit on life support) today.

I don't know that it ever had the potential to be a money-making venture like ROH and Evolve or Chikara, which stayed alive by staying within their means and not getting ahead of themsevles or too big for their britches (ROH is the best model here, keeping it going on a grass-roots level then moving to satellite TV and then signing on the Sinclair to become a national company, if one that's still under the radar for most except for the hardcores).

TNA threw a Hail Mary with the move to bring in Bischoff and Hogan and go head to head live on Monday nights. It was a reach-for-the-stars attempt to elevate itself to true competitor stature and it failed. After that, it probably should have died soon after, but Dixie has kept the pulse beating, if only just barely, ever since.

So I'd like to hear if anyone else sees anything redeeming about Dixie's impact on Impact, and if they have ideas of how TNA could have survived without her.

[Mayonnaise]

I am going to counter on two maybe three things:

1. I think they paid for the FoxSports TV time, not sure though.

2. They lost Spike because of her ineptness and refusal to work with them much like Heyman. On a side note, lets not forget that she didn't get an exclusive put into the DA deal and had to share Wednesdays with Ring of Honor.

3. They lost DA for the same reason, including accidentally sending an email running down DA and their head to the head of DA. Another side note, during those two moves, they had WGN practically begging them to come over for good money, they just wanted some down time to reset things. Dixie turned that down for DA because they offered more shows (all but Impact dead within a month) and Pop (where they get nothing and in some markets still have a split screen with the TV Guide crawl).




She has done great for TNA and she kept them alive for ages, she deserves credit for that for sure, but, that ended long ago and since she has become a detriment. So when you get to your point 7, all of that is of her own doing. At the very least they needed someone to sit there and control the money, someone that could deny her when she wanted to take a bad deal or spend too much on someone. I thought that would be Bischoff but he ended up worse.

[Kash Flagg]

She likes random pics of me on facebook, so she's ok with me.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Dixie is the only promoter I know off that basically turned her company from a national powerhouse to an Indy. It's the reverse ECW

[This Player Hating Mothman]

If I remember a Cornette shoot that he did a year ago with Matt Striker correctly, he apparently had very few interactions with Dixie ever, despite being in the creative meetings and doing all kinds of shit to help put the show together, so I think #6 has her rather off the table. #5 hinges on giving Dixie credit just for other peoples' keen eyes, but she also kept Vince Russo around and kept taking him back time and again, and her baffling loyalty to him goes back even further than secretly hiring him against Spike's wishes. She once tried to take the "Fire Russo" chant heat and blame Dutch Mantell for the match being booed, only for Dutch to later say "bull f***ing shit, that was all Russo", and he was just being thrown under the bus to make Russo look less incompetent.

Another issue with #5 is that coming form AJ's comments about Dixie "caring more about the guys she saw on TV", for your Angles and Christians, there were also your Orlando Jordans, your Ken Andersons, your Val f***ing Venises. Even more recently with Josh Matthews. Lashley is f***ing gold right now, but when he first showed up in TNA he was not the performer he is now by a long shot. It feels less like she was jumping at the chance to sign the top free agents or squandered WWE guys she could give a chance at reinvention to (since few people even were reinvented instead of just doing their same schtick in a slightly different name) and more like she just wanted ex-WWE guys, many of whom had been let go of for pretty major reasons--Anderon's recklessness, Kurt and Jeff's drug issues.

Not to mention Dixie then one by one lost every goddamn one of them, to the point that they have pretty much only Lashley, who's working block tapings and otherwise training for Bellator, which WWE wouldn't let him fight in.

On the other hand, Theoretically Competent Businesswoman Dixie Carter would not have no-showed a face to face meeting with Destination America. Or showed the backstage meeting with her roster. Or the entire Hernandez/MVP thing. Or turning Hulk Hogan into the highest paid man in wrestling when he was with them despite never being used in any constructive capacity.

I think the reality of TNA is that what brought them to the heights they did was two things; the vacuum left in the wake of WCW and ECW going under, and Panda's financial backing gave the company a massive lead over every other company starting up at the time. It shot up to a lofty #2 position and the cushy Spike deal because it could afford to keep big names under its wings, and the charity of a loaded Texas energy company ensured that they could keep eating losses year after year. If anything, I think therein lies the real damage Dixie Carter did; dubious hiring practices and keeping Russo holding the book were both likely factors in keeping TNA from the growth it or some company in its place could have had instead. Every success that could be attributed to Dixie Carter basically just boils down to "she had rich parents whose privately owned company ate some pretty huge losses for the sake of letting her have her vanity project". And that's why once the Panda money fell off and Spike gave them the boot, the cracks grew a whole lot wider.

[Chainsaw]

Allow me to present the counterargument.

F*** her.

[xCompackx]

I'll say this for Dixie: I think she means well. Bringing in Hogan/Bischoff, that talent meeting they aired for some reason, trying to be an on-screen character when f***ing nobody wanted her to, and taking a spot through a table that actually injured her (just to name a few) were things that I could see where she thought would've led to either good television or positive changes for the company. It's just that she's such a short-sighted, unprofessional, and ignorant businessperson that she can't consider how these things could turn out negatively.

In some respects, bringing in Hogan and Bischoff was the worst move because she seemed to have given the keys to the entire company to people who knew what they were doing and everyone those two brought in took advantage of her and caused irreparable damage to TNA as a company and as a brand. And good lord, the less said about Russo, the better.

[Rave]

Oct 3, 2016 22:04:26 GMT -5 Mayonnaise said:

1. I think they paid for the FoxSports TV time, not sure though.

$30,000 per week.

3. They lost DA for the same reason, including accidentally sending an email running down DA and their head to the head of DA. Another side note, during those two moves, they had WGN practically begging them to come over for good money, they just wanted some down time to reset things. Dixie turned that down for DA because they offered more shows (all but Impact dead within a month) and Pop (where they get nothing and in some markets still have a split screen with the TV Guide crawl).

WGN wanted them THREE times, actually. There were negotiations post-FSN that ended up dead in the water.

[jimmyjames]

While a couple of your points might be correct, the bigger problem with Dixie is how she has treated wrestlers, backstage employees, and enabled certain people. Her actions specifically since she gained complete control have hurt TNA and that is why people hate her and want TNA to die.

[lizzurd]

Oct 3, 2016 22:28:56 GMT -5 xCompackx said:

I'll say this for Dixie: I think she means well.

[Deleted]

Oct 3, 2016 22:04:26 GMT -5 Mayonnaise said:

3. They lost DA for the same reason, including accidentally sending an email running down DA and their head to the head of DA.

Don't forget right after that her no-showing a meeting with the network heads.

[________ has left the building]

Dixie is a way more shrewd and devious person than most want to admit to. Folks are fooled by the whole Southern belle, soccer mom in a male dominated field act to not notice that TNA is in the position they are in because of Dixie. She may saved them after HealthSouth went belly up but she also stunted their growth with her decisions.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Dixie is out of her depth and always has been but lot of the rot in TNA was caused by wrestling people, mostly the Jarretts who put in place most of TNA's bad policies and and none of the wrestling people who passed through ever seriously tried to fix things. Jim Cornette, for example, the guy knows how to run a promotion and could have been a key asset to the company but the hill he chose to die upon was squabbling with Russo rather than being the grown up and trying to use his knowledge and connections to make TNA viable. Dutch Mantell, likewise, cashed those cheques until he was released then went on a 'nah, wasn't me guv' tour where his big defence of his time booking was 'Nobody ever chanted fire Dutch.' Jeeze. Dusty was there too and his big idea was to get his now washed up son a job there because that's Dusty... And then there's Bischoff, but we all know how that played out.

People want to blame Dixie and say 'Well, the buck stops with her' because it's a a lot easier than to admit that a lot of legendary figures are either mercenaries, every bit as money grubbing as Hogan and Bischoff, or have tunnel vision that prevents them being the asset to a company they seem to be when they're discussing things from the outside.

That said, I'll never watch TNA again until Dixie is gone, I still haven't gotten over what she did to Daffney, Jesse Neal and Jesse Sorensen.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Oct 4, 2016 8:04:19 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Dixie is out of her depth and always has been but lot of the rot in TNA was caused by wrestling people, mostly the Jarretts who put in place most of TNA's bad policies and and none of the wrestling people who passed through ever seriously tried to fix things. Jim Cornette, for example, the guy knows how to run a promotion and could have been a key asset to the company but the hill he chose to die upon was squabbling with Russo rather than being the grown up and trying to use his knowledge and connections to make TNA viable. Dutch Mantell, likewise, cashed those cheques until he was released then went on a 'nah, wasn't me guv' tour where his big defence of his time booking was 'Nobody ever chanted fire Dutch.' Jeeze. Dusty was there too and his big idea was to get his now washed up son a job there because that's Dusty... And then there's Bischoff, but we all know how that played out.

People want to blame Dixie and say 'Well, the buck stops with her' because it's a a lot easier than to admit that a lot of legendary figures are either mercenaries, every bit as money grubbing as Hogan and Bischoff, or have tunnel vision that prevents them being the asset to a company they seem to be when they're discussing things from the outside.

That said, I'll never watch TNA again until Dixie is gone, I still haven't gotten over what she did to Daffney, Jesse Neal and Jesse Sorensen.

Cornette did coexist with Russo, he bit his tongue and even shakes his hand. The reason he and Dutch got fired was because Dixie was purging tna of everything related Jarrett, that's why Road Dogg and Savio Vega got fired.

Dixie threw away her biggest assets to have Jarrett lose all the power. Oh and Dutch booked the biggest money drawing storylines in tna, he was responsible for Joe and Kurt's program. And Dixie still let him go. What a f***ing moron.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Oct 4, 2016 8:33:53 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Cornette did coexist with Russo, he bit his tongue and even shakes his hand. The reason he and Dutch got fired was because Dixie was purging tna of everything related Jarrett, that's why Road Dogg and Savio Vega got fired.

While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver.

Dixie threw away her biggest assets to have Jarrett lose all the power. Oh and Dutch booked the biggest money drawing storylines in tna, he was responsible for Joe and Kurt's program. And Dixie still let him go. What a f***ing moron.

You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera.

[Chainsaw]

Oct 4, 2016 9:00:43 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Oct 4, 2016 8:33:53 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Cornette did coexist with Russo, he bit his tongue and even shakes his hand. The reason he and Dutch got fired was because Dixie was purging tna of everything related Jarrett, that's why Road Dogg and Savio Vega got fired.

While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver.

Dixie threw away her biggest assets to have Jarrett lose all the power. Oh and Dutch booked the biggest money drawing storylines in tna, he was responsible for Joe and Kurt's program. And Dixie still let him go. What a f***ing moron.

You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera.

Ring Ka King was more entertaining than it had any right to be, almost more so than TNA at the time. And people complain about Angle Vs. Joe now, but it was THE hot feud at the time, and people were dying to see it, hotshotting or no.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Oct 4, 2016 10:03:03 GMT -5 Chainsaw said:

Oct 4, 2016 9:00:43 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver.

You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera.

Ring Ka King was more entertaining than it had any right to be, almost more so than TNA at the time. And people complain about Angle Vs. Joe now, but it was THE hot feud at the time, and people were dying to see it, hotshotting or no.

To be fair, being more entertaining wasn't that hard as it was closer to the TNA we at one point enjoyed, and the fans, myself included, were all going nuts watching Hulk Hogan and Bischoff gutting the company. People complained lots about Angle vs Joe back then too, it gets more praise now because it featured two great workers doing what they do best and is head and shoulders above most of what followed.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Oct 4, 2016 9:00:43 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Oct 4, 2016 8:33:53 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Cornette did coexist with Russo, he bit his tongue and even shakes his hand. The reason he and Dutch got fired was because Dixie was purging tna of everything related Jarrett, that's why Road Dogg and Savio Vega got fired.

While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver.

Dixie threw away her biggest assets to have Jarrett lose all the power. Oh and Dutch booked the biggest money drawing storylines in tna, he was responsible for Joe and Kurt's program. And Dixie still let him go. What a f***ing moron.

You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera.

Russo also has a reputation to sucking up to everyone in power so that he can weather any changes in management. He "earned" Dixie's loyalty enough for her to go to bat for him repeatedly, while Borash might have been a Jarrett hire, but he also seems to be generally holding one out for TNA. That doesn't mean that when Jarrett lost clout and power in the company over the Karen thing there wasn't a very suspicious and sudden turnover in people perceived as being "Jarret guys" being shown the door and all kinds of new stooges loyal to Dixie being pulled in to management positions in their stead.

The idea that Cornette spent his time in TNA squabbling with Russo ignores that outside of the bullshit story that came out after he was let go, he mostly just did his job; he was brought in as an on-screen personality who later became a producer, and near as I can tell he did that job just fine. But his hill to die on had ultimately been the feeling that they were f***ing up their Hernandez push something fierce and that this wasn't going to get the top star they wanted to get over over, and for that he was cut out of the company. How is that not actively trying to do something about it? Dutch's "nah, wasn't me guv" tour had everything to do with the fact that Dixie had previously given an interview where she tried to pin a segment that got a "Fire Russo" chant on Dutch. And as far as his booking went, he was also the guy writing the Knockouts when they were pretty much that decade's peak of women's wrestling in America. Within a year of Dutch leaving, the Knockouts Division was already withering away into a husk of what it once was.

I don't know how people who are just cogs in the machine and not actually in the major, high positions of management can be pointed at in a "You guys want to blame Dixie Carter but what about all these people you like who never did anything?" way. They did do things. They didn't have the power to change the entire direction of the company by themselves. It's the equivalent of going into a thread about Vince being out of touch and saying "Yes, but what about Fit Finlay's role in not changing the company for the better?"

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Oct 4, 2016 9:00:43 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Oct 4, 2016 8:33:53 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Cornette did coexist with Russo, he bit his tongue and even shakes his hand. The reason he and Dutch got fired was because Dixie was purging tna of everything related Jarrett, that's why Road Dogg and Savio Vega got fired.

While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver.

Dixie threw away her biggest assets to have Jarrett lose all the power. Oh and Dutch booked the biggest money drawing storylines in tna, he was responsible for Joe and Kurt's program. And Dixie still let him go. What a f***ing moron.

You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera.

Russo kissed her ass and buried Jarrett as proven by the email he sent her that were revealed last year.

Joe vs Angle did their highest ppv buyrates. Over 60 thousand buys.

Tell me another angle or match that drew that level of money for tna. Joe vs Angle did it twice. And Dutch was responsible for it.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Oct 4, 2016 10:24:03 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

Oct 4, 2016 9:00:43 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver.

You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera.

Russo also has a reputation to sucking up to everyone in power so that he can weather any changes in management. He "earned" Dixie's loyalty enough for her to go to bat for him repeatedly, while Borash might have been a Jarrett hire, but he also seems to be generally holding one out for TNA. That doesn't mean that when Jarrett lost clout and power in the company over the Karen thing there wasn't a very suspicious and sudden turnover in people perceived as being "Jarret guys" being shown the door and all kinds of new stooges loyal to Dixie being pulled in to management positions in their stead.

The idea that Cornette spent his time in TNA squabbling with Russo ignores that outside of the bullshit story that came out after he was let go, he mostly just did his job; he was brought in as an on-screen personality who later became a producer, and near as I can tell he did that job just fine. But his hill to die on had ultimately been the feeling that they were f***ing up their Hernandez push something fierce and that this wasn't going to get the top star they wanted to get over over, and for that he was cut out of the company. How is that not actively trying to do something about it? Dutch's "nah, wasn't me guv" tour had everything to do with the fact that Dixie had previously given an interview where she tried to pin a segment that got a "Fire Russo" chant on Dutch. And as far as his booking went, he was also the guy writing the Knockouts when they were pretty much that decade's peak of women's wrestling in America. Within a year of Dutch leaving, the Knockouts Division was already withering away into a husk of what it once was.

I don't know how people who are just cogs in the machine and not actually in the major, high positions of management can be pointed at in a "You guys want to blame Dixie Carter but what about all these people you like who never did anything?" way. They did do things. They didn't have the power to change the entire direction of the company by themselves. It's the equivalent of going into a thread about Vince being out of touch and saying "Yes, but what about Fit Finlay's role in not changing the company for the better?"

Fit Finlay is one guy in a company that employees hundreds, if not thousands of people, TNA has nothing like that level of bureaucracy, so yes, it's not unreasonable to expect people who have major roles in the company to shoulder some of the responsibility for things staying the same. Dutch Mantell is the guy who claimed the ratings success of the knockouts was down to the slot their segments occupied, if I remember correctly, so I wouldn't put him on a pedestal, Scott D'Amore was a major influence during the year the division caught fire and was a bigger loss than Mantell, either way, Bischoff and Hogan stripping the company of it's identity had more to do with the knockouts division withering than loss of a particular booker, it would have happened whoever they had there.

I love the idea of Russo as a genius hybrid of Machiavelli and Rasputin, who's the only guy who can actually influence what's going on while everyone else is a cog in a machine, just trying to do their job without the influence to change things. Mantell managed to become a booker in an environment as psychotic as Puerto Rican wrestling and spent time booking in the WWE, helping Vince to rewrite shows during his Zeb Coulter run, Dusty is as political as they come and Jim Cornette managed to get the WWE to subsidise his little islands of old school not once but twice so I don't buy that they were powerless pawns, competing with the political juggernaut that is Vince Russo, I just can't.