There has been a lot of backlash over Vince McMahon's recent comments regarding the talent in professional wrestling not being ambitious and TNA president Dixie Carter is the latest person to respond to the chairman.
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Carter spoke with the U.K.'s Mirror about several different topics and addressed McMahon, who said Superstars aren't as ambitious as No. 1 WWE babyface John Cena and need to grab the brass ring on "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's podcast on the WWE Network earlier this month.
"I can't even comprehend that statement," Carter told the affiliate. "It doesn't sit with our group. My own roster's completely different than that. I don't have a complaint about anybody on my roster. The young guys are just as hungry ... the young guys from 10 years ago are now the Bobby Roodes, Samoa Joes, James Storms. My main eventers, who were brand new young talent from 10 to 12 years ago, I'm proud of how far they've come. This young group of talent we have right now, they're the hardest working, most positive team players around."
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There is said to be negative morale backstage in the WWE following McMahon's appearance and comments on the podcast as some talents felt the CEO "crapped" on them.
Carter also defended her company's penchant for reaching out and signing past WWE talents, which was a move made popular by Eric Bischoff during his time with WCW.
"For so many years, I've caught so much negative flack, people saying that all we do is hire WWE people," Carter said. "The truth of the matter is, if you look at the WWE roster of late, they're full of TNA talent even if that means a Sting, Hulk Hogan or a Rob Van Dam, Ric Flair. That's a passé complaint. When you only have two leagues there's only so many talent that you can find that are on a worldwide level. I think the tide has turned and WWE is taking our talent of late, not the reverse of that. It's just the way it's been."
Carter also took the defensive against people who thought that TNA had a bad year in 2014 as the company had to move its flagship show Impact Wrestling from Spike TV to Discovery Channels' Destination America starting next month.
"I think people say it's difficult because this is the first time I've negotiated a television contract so publicly," she said. "There's all kinds of questions and doubts out there, and rumors that aren't true. I go through this every two years and have never had the public spotlight on the company, especially in any kind of negative way. When you're going through television negotiations, you can't give that out publicly, it's a private, confidential negotiation. I can't respond to negativity or even anything positive being said, that's not good business. It's very difficult for me to sit back and hear these negative things being said, but all I can do is say to myself, 'I know what's going on, I know what's going to happen, and when it comes out everyone else will know as well.' You can't let yourself be brought down by those negative conversations."
Lastly, Carter moved on to 2015 and talked about the company's transition to Destination America and what fans can expect.
"Our first show, which is live, will be similar to what we've done in the past," she said while talking up plans to expand Destination America globally. "There'll be a few new bells and whistles but it'll be similar because there's only so much you can do live because you don't have the post-production time to dive into unique, different production aspects. But if you give us a few weeks, I think everyone will start to see a transition of very new and very exciting ways to watch Impact. I don't want to say too much, I'd rather it just unveil itself. I'm definitely excited about some of the changes coming up."
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