Angelina Love Lays Into Former TNA President Dixie Carter

Long before IMPACT Wrestling’s renaissance, TNA Wrestling was pro wrestling’s punchline, with years of terrible deals, mismanagement, and laughable matches all occurring under former President Dixie Carter’s watch.

Now, former Knockouts Champion and current ROH star Angelina Love has given her thoughts on working with Carter, telling Inside the Ropes:

“[Working with her was] like a disaster. And you know, coming from WWE and being devastated at being released and stuff like that, and then coming into TNA and then seeing a female president or whatever she was, you know what I mean? But [she] just was not ready, didn’t have the knowledge. And she’s the reason that we lost the Spike TV deal, like the Ultimate Fighter was on after us. Velvet [Sky] and I were going sitting third row ringside at UFC fights. Being on Spike TV is really, I think, what helped made a lot of us TNA people a household name, because we had that exposure.

“I think a lot of people thought she was just very impressionable, maybe kind of dumb, and they could take advantage of her and tell her hey, this should be done this way,” she added. “And this should be done that way. And she was like, okay, okay. Okay. And she changed too, at some point, because she used to be wanting to know about people’s families, and how are your kids and  I had broken up with a boyfriend at the time and her and I talked in the bathroom for like 10 minutes and it was really nice. And, you know, that was like back in ’08, and then come like 2010 – 2011 it was just like, she’d walk by people like they didn’t even exist. And the money that was being spent in the dumbest ways.”

In Love’s opinion, Carter’s angling for her own reality show with Spike TV was one of the final nails in the coffin for TNA on the channel:

“In my personal opinion, what I saw on Dixie is that she was so desperate to be just like Stephanie McMahon because she wanted to have her own reality TV show. And who would f****** watch that? Excuse my language, who would watch that? Who would watch a Dixie Carter reality show? You know what I mean?” Angelina said. “Nobody wanted to do that because they knew it would flop and that was like a big contingency for her and you know this and that, then, you know, Spike TV was going to renew a contract with TNA and she wanted double what they were offering and Spike TV was like, ‘Are you crazy?’ But God bless them and I don’t blame them. They held their ground until they were like, ‘Alright, well, no, we’re done.’

“And then all of a sudden, at TV we’re filming and all of us are like, are we gonna have a job next month? Like what? It was crazy. It was crazy vibes backstage when that happened, but that was all her.”