Dixie Carter usually gets dragged whenever TNA’s rough years come up, but Eric Bischoff is not jumping on that pile.
With Dark Side of the Ring putting TNA back under the microscope, Bischoff used his 83 Weeks podcast to give Carter some credit instead of another round of blame. He admitted he has been hard on her before, but he also said the former TNA president deserves more respect than fans usually give her.
“I think Dixie deserves a lot more respect and credit than she gets. I’ll be honest, I’ve been a little hard on Dixie from time to time when this subject comes up, but I don’t think I’ve been unfair.”
Bischoff said the Dixie he knew was not some careless boss who walked into wrestling just to play promoter. He described her as kind, well-meaning, and genuinely invested in trying to make TNA work.
“I think Dixie is one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with. I think she’s got a very good heart. I think her intentions when she got involved with TNA were as righteous as yours or mine would be in that same situation. I think she had every intention of really trying to make a go of it.”
That is where the defense turns into a pretty brutal diagnosis of what went wrong. Bischoff said Carter simply was not ready for the wrestling business, and worse than that, she did not have enough people around her who understood it either.
“But she wasn’t prepared for it, and neither was anybody around her. That was her biggest problem. She didn’t have anybody around her who really understood, A, entertainment, and B, the wrestling business.”
In Bischoff’s eyes, that was the trap. Wrestling is not just TV, and it is not just live entertainment. It is its own weird animal, and he thinks Carter was surrounded by people who may have been successful elsewhere but had no real feel for how wrestling actually works.
“The wrestling business is unique. Professional wrestling as a televised property is a unique business model. She was surrounded by a bunch of people who were probably successful in other parts of their lives, whatever that may have been. Some of them were tangentially in the music business in one way, shape, or form, as most people in Nashville are at one point in time or another, but they had zero feel, instinct, or experience for the professional wrestling business.”
Then came the part that sounded less like an excuse and more like a warning. Bischoff said Carter got pulled in too many directions by people who did not know what they were doing. He almost called her a victim, then pulled that word back, but the point was obvious. He believes she was influenced by the wrong voices.
“Because Dixie wasn’t surrounded by enough people who could insulate her from bad choices, bad decisions, or bad directions, she became a victim. ‘Victim’ is not the right word—she got pulled in a lot of different directions, and she didn’t have enough knowledge or experience of her own to make decisions that were really hers. I think she was so heavily influenced by so many people, and unfortunately, there were people who didn’t know their ass from a bag of rocks when it came to the wrestling business.”
So Bischoff is not saying Dixie Carter got everything right. He is saying the story is not as simple as fans making her the punchline for every TNA mistake. To him, Carter cared. She tried. She just walked into one of the strangest businesses in entertainment without enough people around her who knew how to keep the wheels from flying off.
Now that TNA’s past is getting another hard look, Bischoff seems to want one thing made clear. Dixie Carter may have been part of the chaos, but he does not think she deserves to be remembered as the villain of it.
Do you think Eric Bischoff is right that Dixie Carter deserves more respect for her time in TNA? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.
