Angelina Love recalls IMPACT Wrestling management falling apart.
The company once known as TNA has gone through several management changes, but perhaps none were as drastic as when Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan joined the company in 2010. During a recent interview with Steve Fall of Ten Count, Angelina Love explained how the shift in management led to her departure.
“It was a change in management that was the catalyst for that,” Love said. “Because once again, you have 14 girls on the roster, Vince [Russo] is going to make sure that like 10 to 12 girls, if not all of us, are somehow incorporated on the show. So it was always very fair. And I will just say this because they were not fond of me and I was not fond of them, Eric Bischoff and Bruce Prichard, once they came in and got like ‘an office position,’ it was for me anyway, they were so nice to me before they had kind of position. Then once they got a position, they would just walk by me like they never saw me ever.”
Love noted that less roster members were used, making it feel like a ghost town backstage. She also thought that her storyline with Winter “sucked,” and they were only getting paid per appearance if used.
“I had already been there for five years at that point and they already knew what I could do. But once Vince kind of got pushed out, a lot of it was real negative and went downhill. Yeah, I ended up quitting in July 2012.”
Fall brought up how Hulk Hogan gets lumped in with the behind-the-scenes issues during that time, but Love actually liked him.
“Hulk gets a lot of flack. I really like Hulk, like I put it all on Prichard and Bischoff,” Love stated. “Maybe Hulk did things I didn’t know about, but Hulk was actually very helpful to me in the end. We spoke on the phone for an hour, like he totally had my back, and the decision to leave was mine.”
Love then went on to note that Dixie Carter being in the mix didn’t help things as she had the wrong people in her ear.
“Jeff Jarrett did a good job running things, I wouldn’t put that on [Carter] as far as ‘running things.’ It was her family’s money,” Love said. “But yeah, I had heard of a situation where Eric had had a conversation with her in the offices that really made her flip a switch and it went less from a kind of cozy family-ish, nice vibe backstage to being cold, heartless, just gray kind of vibe, and it was like, everybody could feel it. No one liked it. She definitely had the wrong people in her ear giving her very bad advice, and well, we see where that took them.”
Love also said that Carter “went off in her own world” and wanted to be Stephanie McMahon “so bad.” Carter ended up receiving a lot of screen time, which resulted in the Knockouts being featured less despite that not being what the fans wanted.
“She just went off in her own world,” Angelina explained. “She wanted to be Stephanie McMahon so bad and she ended up having — like 80% of the Knockouts ended up getting pushed off of the show because Dixie had to have 11 segments every show. And it was like, she just put herself all over the show and that’s not what people want. That’s not what people are tuning in for.”
The six-time Knockouts Champion returned to TNA/IMPACT twice after her 2012 departure, but she is currently signed to the National Wrestling Alliance.
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If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Ten Count with a h/t to WrestleZone for the transcription.
