TNA broadcasts air in 118 countries, to debut on Spike TV

Her Hockaday classmates would never have imagined Dixie Carter as the princess of professional wrestling.

Nor would her former colleagues at Dallas-based Levenson & Hill Inc. have thought she'd use her marketing finesse to resuscitate a young grappling company.

But as fate would have it, the 40-year-old who attended prep school and launched her career in Big D is now president of Nashville-based Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, the second-largest wrestling promo company in the world.

"Oh yeah, I used to dream about this in my Hockaday green-plaid skirt," says Ms. Carter.

It competes against World Wrestling Enterprises Inc., the highly profitable and publicly traded wrestling giant that generated $366 million in revenue last year.

Fans know Ms. Carter's company – which uses a six-sided ring and a six-sided wrestling cage for its innovative matches – as TNA.

In another bizarre twist, her parents, Bob and Janice Carter, who own Dallas-based Panda Energy International Inc., also own TNA Entertainment LLC.

The 60-something couple, who are more familiar with power plants than power lifting, bought the wrestling company from HealthSouth Corp. in 2002. It had been a pet investment project of then chief executive Richard Scrushy.

Under Dixie Carter's leadership and with her parents' money, TNA broadcasts air in 118 countries. It has deals with Marvel Enterprises Inc. to license action figures and Navarre Entertainment Media to distribute home video. As of next week, its DVDs will be sold at retail chains in the U.S. and Canada, including Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us and Best Buy.

And Saturday night at 10 p.m. Dallas time, TNA will debut on Spike TV as part of its Slammin' Saturday Night line-up. The shows – as much theater as confrontations – will re-air Mondays at 11 p.m. to draw Monday Night Football viewers after the game.

"All our moons are aligning with beautiful timing," Ms. Carter says.

Ms. Carter runs TNA's business and promotional sides and manages the creative side. But she doesn't write the scripts.

Scripts?

"It is real bumps, real hits," Ms. Carter says.

"These athletes are literally flying through the air doing these amazing things. But there are certain elements that are 'predetermined.' "

So the fix is in?

"Let's just say it's Shakespeare to the masses," she says. "People know Tom Cruise is not really so-and-so in a movie. But for two hours they pay money and suspend their disbelief. What we do is no different. We combine athletics with entertainment."

Spike TV, which bills itself as the "first network for men," reaches 88 million U.S. and Canadian homes. For the past several years, Spike had been the TV home for WWE, but it's moving back to USA Network.

Spike wasn't looking for a wrestling replacement but was blown away by the action and athleticism of TNA, says Brian Diamond, Spike's vice president of sports and specials. He and Ms. Carter were at Universal Studios in Orlando on Tuesday filming the first TNA/Spike shows.

"When you hear the name Dixie Carter, you think Designing Women ," Mr. Diamond says. "But she is tough as she is sweet – and tough in a good way. She made believers out of us."

So how did this 1982 Hockaday School grad and her parents wind up in wrestling?

It started in the parking lot of the Hackberry Creek Apartments in Los Colinas in 1986. That's where Ms. Carter met Jeff Jarrett, a pro wrestler and co-founder of TNA.

"He came up to me with his blond locks and asked me what I did. He said he was a professional wrestler. His last name was my mother's maiden name, so it stuck. Months later I heard about him on Letterman. So I thought, 'Oh gosh, this guy's for real.' "

In 1993, Ms. Carter packed up a U-Haul "and like a bad country song, headed for Nashville to start my own entertainment company."

She was handling music promotion and representing pro football players when a music booking company recommended her to the fledgling wrestling company. At her introductory meeting, lo and behold, there sat Jeff Jarrett.

She took on TNA's marketing promotions and PR duties. "The business was everything I didn't expect it to be," she recalls.

Just three months into the job, she talked her dad into bailing out the company after Mr. Scrushy cut bait.

"I knew this would be a completely nonstrategic investment for Panda Energy, but I also knew my dad is one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the world," she says.

Mr. Carter's only experience with pro wrestling was watching Gorgeous George as a little boy and Dallas' Von Erich dynasty later on. So why did he finance such a risky start-up?

"I don't care if she is my daughter, Dixie is one of the damnedest salespeople in the world," Mr. Carter says. "If you see her coming, lock your doors."

Besides, her sales pitch made sense: WWE was a Hertz without an Avis. "TNA wasn't a one-trick pony," he says. "It draws revenue from eight or nine categories."

And the price was right. The Carters bought the company in 2002 for about $250,000 because HealthSouth wanted to boot TNA off its books. At the time, TNA was bringing in more than that every month in pay-per-view.

"Then we started plowing money into it," says Mr. Carter, actually laughing about a current "burn rate" of about $1 million a month. "Of course, we have revenue coming in to offset some of that."

Some, but not enough.

Given the confluence of merchandise, Spike TV, pay-per-view, an upcoming deal for video games and growing international interest, TNA will be at break-even next month. Father and daughter expect to see some return on Mr. Carter's considerable investment early next year.

"After that," he says, "the upside is tremendous."