The Baltimore Sun’s Kevin Eck interviewed the Franchise on his blog. He’s not so big on TNA these days, now that his one shot deal with them is done:
I think there’s a huge need to change the way business is done. Whether they do or not will remain to be seen, but I think TNA, especially, is at a fork in the road to whether Dixie Carter will be prescient enough to make those changes or she has the guts to make those changes. I don’t think she does, but I hope she does for the guys’ sake, for wrestling’s sake, for her father’s money’s sake.
He brought up TNA’s reliance on older talent and inability to turn their deep pool of young talent in to money drawing stars before talking about competing with WWE for lapsed wrestling fans, which led to a further diagnosis of Dixie Carter’s intestinal fortitude:
They’ve been nothing more than WWE Light, and to be quite honest with you, I’m not a big fan of WWE, but if I had a choice of WWE, with their superb production qualities, their big-name talent, their big-business feel, or a company trying to be them with guys that I don’t know, second-rate production qualities, and quite frankly, a cheap look, I’ll go with the slick-looking product. Those are the big things I think they need to concentrate on. They must be different. There are almost 10 million fans that have tuned out from wrestling in the last 10 years. Nobody is playing to them. The same 1-point rating for TNA and the 3-point-whatever for WWE I would say are pretty much the same fans. Go for the bigger pool. If I’m selling toothpaste, I’d rather sell to 10 million people than to 3 million. That’s what I don’t think WWE is doing, or else they’ve forgotten how. For some reason, Vince McMahon has some belief that wrestling is Podunk or redneck or beneath him, but those fans’ money is just as green as anybody else’s and there a hell of a lot more of them. That’s what TNA should be doing, but they have not and will not. That’s what I mean when I say I hope Dixie has the guts to make the changes that she need
He says a lot more, but it’s Shane Douglas; read it for yourself if you want to know what he thinks of the new ECW, wrestlers in SAG, his autobiography, and returning to the indies. Two block quotes of Douglas is all you get out of me today. I have things to do.
