Dixie Carter did not take part in Dark Side of the Ring’s three-part look at Jeff Jarrett and TNA, and she came out of it as the villain. Matt Hardy, who was one of the few people in the series with anything good to say about her, thinks it was overdone.
“They definitely decided to make Dixie the villain,” Hardy said on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy.
Asked whether her portrayal was fair, Hardy split the difference.
“Dixie definitely made mistakes. But I think it was a little over the top. They laid it on really, really thick with Dixie, and I think it was a little much,” Hardy said.
The moment that drew the most attention was the all-talent meeting Carter held and put on television, where she made clear she was the one calling the shots. Hardy, who was not there, said it did her no favors.
“The more I think about that, there was a lot of hubris in that. Like, hey, I’m calling the shots here, and if I make a decision, I need you to have my back,” Hardy said. “That moment where she sat down, that was not the best call, because that was not great for morale. People probably like, what the fck. Everyone wants input. I think if you run a professional wrestling company, it’s so important to have input on what you’re doing, and you don’t want to be told like, hey, this is what you’re doing, shut the fck up and go do it. You don’t get any input. This is my company, I own it. This is what you do.”
He said the message landed badly.
“I don’t think anybody wants to hear like, if I make a decision, you stand behind me. You just do what I say and stand behind me,” Hardy said. “I think it came off bad, and it probably didn’t do her any favors as far as winning people’s alliance and their loyalty.”
Where Hardy went further than the documentary did was in asking who put her up to it.
“It makes me wonder, was she fed that by Hulk or by Eric? Like, go out and tell the troops, rally the troops,” Hardy said. “And who knows, man? They’re both sharks, right? They’re survivalists. They’ve been in the industry and the business so long. Who knows?”
His read on Carter is that she was in over her head rather than malicious.
“Dixie was just kind of learning on the job, no doubt. She was like Carlos Silva, right? Like, this wrestling, people online, they hate me. They hate me now. What’s going on?” Hardy said. “She dove into the deep end and wasn’t exactly sure how to swim in the pro wrestling industry.”
He was clear about his own experience with her.
“All of my interactions with her have been good, and she’s been fair with me. She’s been cool. She’s been supportive of myself and my family and kids, everything else,” Hardy said.
Carter was invited to take part in the documentary and never got back to the production. Hardy has a theory on why.
“There’s a part of me that thinks she would want to be in there to defend herself, unless she thought they were still going to put her in the villain role, and they were going to have people villainize her, and she was still going to come off looking bad, and maybe she just thought it was a lose lose,” Hardy said. “She probably guessed she was going to be slated into the dark side of Dixie Carter, right? She was going to be the one villainized in this, and she was going to be the one that got the majority of the blame. And maybe that’s just why she didn’t want to have any part of it. Because if she would have been in it and still looked at and portrayed as the bad guy, it wouldn’t have done her any favors.”
Hardy also made the point that the series glossed over what Carter’s money did for the company.
“Without Panda Energy, the company doesn’t keep moving forward after they had that HealthSouth scandal,” Hardy said.
Kurt Angle also did not appear, and Hardy said his absence was felt.
“Kurt Angle is a big one too,” Hardy said. “He’s also massively important to their success. Even though when he left WWE it wasn’t on the best terms there, and he wasn’t in the best place, him coming to TNA was a huge game changer. It gave them so much credibility. It gave them so much equity, and he was a huge part of why they got that Spike deal.”
As for the Jarrett, Karen and Angle storyline the series built its second act around, Hardy declined to weigh in, and drew on his own experience to explain why.
“I don’t know anything about that, so I just listened, and I thought it was interesting. It is what it is, and I just know how my situation that went on,” Hardy said. “Like, people don’t know what the f*ck happened, and it is way different than what people think. And I would imagine theirs has also that same reality. It’s very different than how people think or believe.”
