Dixie Carter Talks About TNA Possibly Signing CM Punk And Vince Russo, Copying WWE
TNA President Dixie Carter announced that her company has a new television deal with Destinaton America, and now she's making the media rounds promoting both Impact and British Bootcamp. She also had time to discuss two names garnering polarizing reactions in wrestling- CM Punk and Vince Russo. She spoke to The Independent about both of them.
"CM Punk's in a place right now where he's happy and I wouldn't attempt to try to get him to come wrestle for us until he's in a place where he wants to wrestle. I respect what he's done so much, he was in my opinion at the top of his game, and it's hard walking away from a big paycheck, but he did it. You wouldn't want to ask him to walk to a new paycheck until his head is in the right place," Carter said. Punk left TNA after a short tun in 2003.
Carter would also put over her own talent pool, but said that signing new talent is inevitable.
"We've got some exciting storylines planned, and we have our eye on a handful of talent that I think might compliment that," she said.
TNA's working relationship also caused a huge stir this year, as rumors flew about Spike TV being unhappy with Russo to the point of requesting TNA not working with him.
"I'm a fan but it wasn't the time to take it to another level. Vince has worked with us three different times, and the one thing I've learnt in wrestling is that you never say never and I'll never say never on Vince," Carter said. She also compared him to a star football player that causes a distraction to the rest of the team.
Carter said that she plans on separating TNA from other wrestling companies in 2015, as some critics have accused the company of emulating WWE.
"I think it's very important, and that's my goal for 2015, to distinguish our product and brand even more. We don't need to be another wrestling company, we need to be something unique, different and special and some of things we've done, the way we do backstage pre-tapes, the way we shoot stuff, I think has been amazing and I take it as a sincere compliment when other companies in your competition try to replicate that," Carter said.
You can read the entire interview at this link.