Al Snow Calls TNA A “Vanity Project” For Dixie Carter, Recalls Backstage Divide

Al Snow believes Dixie Carter could not have improved her portrayal by participating in the recent Dark Side of the Ring documentary about TNA.

Speaking on The Brand, Snow also called TNA a “vanity project” for Carter and recalled a backstage divide between the promotion’s office staff and wrestlers.

Snow said Carter was inevitably going to receive the blame because she was running the company.

“When you’re the boss, who gets to eat the shit sandwich? The boss. At the end of the day, if anything does not go good, who’s going to eat the shit sandwich?

“Is it right? Is it necessary? No. Are they going to judge your decisions? Absolutely they are.”

Snow compared Carter’s position to Vince McMahon receiving responsibility for everything that happened under his leadership in WWE.

“Same with Vince McMahon. I’m not talking about him as a person. I’m talking about him as a businessman and as a leader.

“He’s the one who is going to answer for everything, and everyone is going to address it with him.”

Snow said Carter likely made decisions that she believed were best for TNA, but he also characterized the promotion as a personal vanity project.

“She was making them because she thought that they were the best ones to make for the company, but also because she didn’t know what she was doing.

“It was a vanity project for her, and it allowed her to be on TV and to be a celebrity.”

Snow does not blame Carter for declining to participate in the documentary because he believes the program would have sought dramatic and damaging material.

“Of course, Dark Side of the Ring wants salaciousness. They want drama. They want heat, and they’re going to edit in the ways that they want to edit.

“I’m sure she wasn’t comfortable with being put into that type of position and was probably aware that the vast majority of who was going to be interviewed were going to say negative things about her and about her leadership.”

Russo suggested that Carter could have acknowledged being inexperienced and overwhelmed. Snow did not believe that would have improved the result.

“I don’t think she could have won.”

Snow said such an admission would not have ended the documentary’s questioning.

“It wouldn’t have been better if she went on and went, ‘Look, I was out of my depth. I didn’t know what I was doing.’

“That’s not going to be sufficient. That’s not going to be enough of an answer. They’re going to keep digging. They’re going to keep trying to get sound bites that they can alter or put in to help tell more of a salacious story.”

Snow contrasted appearing in a documentary with issuing a controlled public statement, as he did following a controversy involving a referee in OVW.

“I put out a statement of what actually took place, and then that was it.

“Whatever she would have done, she wouldn’t have been able to win. She wouldn’t have looked better coming off of that.”

Snow worked in television and talent relations for TNA and said he witnessed significant resentment between the company’s office staff and wrestlers.

“I was right there in that office and watched a lot of it. I always found it odd that, on the office side of things, there was a bit of a deep-seated resentment by office staff, to some degree, against the talent and against the wrestlers.

“It was very much a wrestlers-versus-office dynamic that was going on.”

Snow also recalled longstanding tension involving Jarrett, Carter and the TNA office.

“There was a longstanding enmity between Jeff and the office and Dixie. It was an underlying one. It was there, and you could sense it and feel it. It certainly wasn’t constructive.”

Snow said the wrestlers were treated differently in TNA than they had been under McMahon in WWE.

“Coming from WWE and WWF, where for Vince the talent were everything, they were preeminent. They were the business.

“In TNA, the office was the business. They even acted like the talent weren’t the ones drawing the money, that the office was. That attitude was very pervasive throughout that office.”

Snow believes comments made by Carter indicated there was resentment between the Carter family and Jarrett.

“I’m not jumping on the ‘let’s bash Dixie’ train, but there were little things that she would say that led you to believe there was certainly some level of resentment between the Carters and Jeff throughout.

“I think that, along with combinations of other decisions and other mistakes along the way, is what led it to the place where it was.”

If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit The Brand, with a h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.