Dixie Carter Talks Impact On Friday Nights, Mathews Replacing Tenay, Impact Zone Return?, More

- TNA President Dixie Carter recently spoke with Brian Fritz of SportingNews.com to promote last night's Impact Wrestling premiere on Destination America. The full interview is available at this link. Below are some highlights:

Impact Wrestling changes in 2015:
"We're also going to be looking at making some changes to the show in 2015. When you tune in Wednesday night, it's going to be a great live wrestling show. There's going to be some exciting surprises that happen on it but there will also be some amazing matches. But as you start to watch the shows through the year you'll see the changes that we'll be working on. A lot of those will be pulling the curtain back a little more than we have in the past and seeing cameras in different positions and production is going to be shot differently and we're going to be trying some new things with the announcers. So, we're really trying to look at the product with fresh eyes focusing very much on what we do best, the in-ring product like we did this past summer but at the same time working on really making the show have a much, much different feel."

Leaving Spike TV:
"Well, I think we had been there a long time and it was a fantastic relationship. I talked to (Spike TV president) Kevin Kay early on in the negotiating and said look we don't want it just to be status quo. We feel like to grow on Spike we have to have more programming and take things to a whole other level. Viacom has tapped him to go more scripted so that was going to be a bigger challenge for him than it had even before. I think change is good and I feel like we've got a network with fresh eyes and is really excited. It's a smaller network. It's a smaller network that's part of a much bigger network globally for us. It's a worldwide deal we made with them. It's not just for one, two-hour show and we've got a great opportunity."

Support from Destination America:
"I think you'll see over the next couple of weeks what they're planning on doing, the media that they're planning on buying. They're running commercials across all ten of their major networks, supporting it digitally, in print and radio, everything. It's a smaller network that we're on but we've never had that kind of massive exposure before. And that's what we need. People will eventually find it. Some people don't have Destination America and that's going to be tougher for us because we are dealing with, like I said, a network that's smaller but we're part of such a big family that's putting so many resources behind us. As we grow, Destination America ? it's just going to make that relationship that much more valuable."

Going to Friday nights:
"I think I'll tell you in a few months if I like being on Friday nights. They presented us with a lot of research and felt very strongly about Friday nights being a potential for them. +3's is how people look at ratings nowadays, it's not overnight ratings. With your +3 numbers, you have a much bigger chance for your +3 number over a weekend versus only, like if we were staying on Wednesday, that would be Thursday, Friday and you would have part of Saturday. It's just an overall strategy. They feel really strongly about it. Wrestling has been successful on Friday nights and is no longer there and so we'll see how we'll do."

Josh Mathews replacing Mike Tenay:
"I think Mike's going to go on a new adventure for us and one that there is nobody else that we could have had handle that for us and Mike is going to really spearhead the "Unlocked" show. Who better than The Professor and uncover all these tidbits and pieces of information that we feel like people want to see. Mike has been with us since the beginning. He's an integral part of this company. This is a chance for him to do something different and a chance to change the show up some. We're going to be doing some different things with how we even work with the announcers going forward after the live show. People are going to have to stay tuned to see what those are but I think it'll give the show a different feel. You'll see Mike on "Impact" in some important ways that will tie "Impact" to "Unlocked". I think it's going to give the show a different feel from beginning to end with Josh and Taz calling it. And then how we're going to handle that and shoot it is going to make it even more fun."

Possibly returning to the Impact Zone at Universal Studios:
"Yeah, it may be a different soundstage which I like because we can mix it up and make the change to make it look different. We're talking with them now and I do envision that we'll probably have some shows coming back from there. I want to be there at a time when the audiences are great and they're full and there's certain times of year that are much busier than others and we want to really time it so it's perfect."

TNA still being alive and trying to put up a good fight:
"I don't know what company doesn't have a fight. I think every one of our competitors still has that and how do you fight to grow? It wasn't a fight to get on TV for negotiations this year. It's ridiculous for people to even think that. Every two years I have negotiations. This year we had more people interested in working with us than ever before. The fact that it played out in social media and I took as long as I did in making a decision because I wanted to get it right. I wanted to make sure whoever we were going to was going to give us all that our talent and company deserves. That's a great victory. That's a great place to be. That's not a fight ? that's part of the process. And it was a great process and it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to now putting that behind us, at least for a couple more years, and then we'll get going on the other things that we're excited about this year."

Source: SportingNews.com