Thomas Golianopoulos of Grantland.com has a very interesting, in-depth article on TNA with comments from Dixie Carter, AJ Styles, Vince Russo, John Gaburick, Jeff Jarrett and others. It was noted that country music singer Toby Keith is indeed one of the Global Force Wrestling backers. The full article can be read at this link. Here are some quotes:
Dixie on the story TMZ ran a few months ago:
“TMZ asked me, ‘Hey, is this story real, should we run with it?’ I was watching a movie and didn’t see it until some little wrestling site ran it. Then I gave TMZ a quote, which said we’re still negotiating. That never made it to print.”
Dixie on Vince Russo:
“He’s a lightning rod. People hate him, but sometimes people love what he does but they don’t realize he does it. He’s a really talented guy.”
Dixie on Jeff Jarrett:
“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.”
AJ Styles on Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff:
“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.”
Dixie on her offer to AJ Styles to re-sign:
“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.”
AJ on the offer TNA made him, which he says would have been about a 40% pay cut:
“It was insulting. For a guy who’d been a staple of that company for 11 years, who busted his tail, never got in trouble, never did anything to embarrass your company, and what [Carter] offered me was enough for me to go, ‘I’m not working here.’ I loved that company. I did. I put everything I had into it.”
Dixie on TNA’s future:
“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, shortsighted thing — the sheer absurdity and stupidity of it blows my mind. I feel sorry for the wrestling business if we’re not around.”
