Matt Hardy believes Dark Side of the Ring leaned too heavily into portraying former TNA President Dixie Carter as the villain in its recent three-part documentary on Jeff Jarrett and TNA Wrestling.
Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Hardy acknowledged that Carter made mistakes during her tenure but felt the documentary exaggerated her role in the company’s struggles. “They definitely decided to make Dixie the villain,” Hardy said.
When asked whether the portrayal was fair, Hardy offered a balanced assessment. “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.
One of the documentary’s most-discussed moments focused on a meeting where Carter addressed the TNA roster and emphasized that she was ultimately in charge. Although Hardy was not present for the meeting, he felt the approach hurt morale.
“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.”
Hardy added that the message itself likely alienated the locker room. “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.”
Hardy also questioned whether Carter’s approach may have been influenced by others behind the scenes. “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?”
Despite criticizing some of Carter’s decisions, Hardy said he believes she was learning on the job rather than acting out of malice. “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.”
Hardy also made it clear that his own dealings with Carter were always positive. “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 declined to participate in the documentary despite being invited, and Hardy believes she likely expected to be portrayed negatively regardless of what she said.
“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 argued that the documentary overlooked the financial support Carter’s family brought to TNA through Panda Energy. “Without Panda Energy, the company doesn’t keep moving forward after they had that HealthSouth scandal,” Hardy said.
He also felt Kurt Angle’s absence from the documentary was significant, given the impact he had on TNA’s growth. “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 documentary’s focus on the real-life situation involving Jeff Jarrett, Karen Jarrett, and Kurt Angle, Hardy declined to offer an opinion, saying outsiders rarely know the full story.
“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.”
