When Vince McMahon relaunched ECW back in 2006, he wanted Kurt Angle to be the centerpiece of the company, but this wasn’t something the Olympic Gold Medalist was overly thrilled about.
WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle was a recent guest on The A2theK Wrestling Show to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked about his time in ECW, Angle admitted that he wasn’t thrilled about it because he felt like he was getting demoted.
“Well, Vince McMahon came to me one day, and he said, ‘Listen, I’m going to start a new company. And I want to make you the name and the face of the company.’ This is what he said, which blew my mind,” Kurt Angle teased. “He said, ‘But you’re going to work in smaller arenas and make less money.’ I said, ‘Vince, why the hell would I want to do that?’
“He said, ‘Listen, I’m gonna pay you on the back end. So I’m gonna pay you more whenever you do a pay-per-view; I’ll pay you five times more than you usually get to make up for the money that you’re losing by going to this small company.’ And he said, ‘We’re going to call it ECW.’ I said, ‘Well, that company already exists.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but I purchased it. And I’m gonna start the company. We’re gonna go back and do the old school ECW.’
“And I said, ‘Why do you want me in there? Those guys have a bunch of gimmicks, kendo sticks and chairs and ladders.’ And he said, ‘Well, I want you to be the workhorse of the company. I want you to be the face of it.’ And I felt like, honestly, not that ECW wasn’t a big hit. It really was. It was huge. But I felt like I was getting demoted.
“Here I am, the best technical wrestler in the company, and they want me to join ECW instead of WWE RAW or SmackDown, and I felt like wow, am I going to start carrying a chair and a kendo stick in my hand or what am I going to do to? I was afraid that the fans would not accept me because I was just a technical wrestler. And they use a lot of weapons in ECW.
“So I just felt like it wasn’t the right fit for me, but Vince really thought it was, and I didn’t stay there long because I left the company immediately after that. So I didn’t really get to see how well it would have played out, unfortunately. But I had a lot of problems going on at that time, my health, my painkiller problem, the injuries I was enduring. So I decided to leave almost, I’d say like a month after ECW even started.”
READ MORE: Kurt Angle Tried To Convince Bret Hart To Have A Match With Him At WrestleMania
What do you make of Kurt Angle’s comments? Did you enjoy his time in ECW? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit The A2theK Wrestling Show with a link back to this article for the transcription.
