Destination America was responsible for Kurt Angle becoming TNA World Champion in 2015.
National Wrestling Alliance owner Billy Corgan was a recent guest on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet. When asked if there are frustrations about not having a TV deal for his company yet, Corgan admits he has those moments but also knows once that occurs, he has to answer to the network about his product.
Billy Corgan went on to tell a story about how Destination America insisted that Kurt Angle was made TNA World Champion because they wanted someone who represented America.
“There are moments of frustration where I wish I’d gotten the TV deal,” Billy Corgan admitted. “But seemed like it was there, and then you realize it’s a little bit of what I went through with the band. The minute you jump into deeper water now, you’re subservient to a greater set of forces which are beyond your control, put simply to the camera, the minute you take somebody else’s money. Now you’re in a different negotiation.
Kurt Angle’s Title Run
“And they start, you know, I remember, just tell a quick funny story. I remember being in a TNA, and there was some grousing about Kurt Angle being the champion, which seems strange to me because Kurt Angle was one of the all-time greats and always a great person to do business with behind the scenes.
“Nothing respect for Kurt. So I was like, why are people complaining? Oh, well, you know, somebody pulls you aside; well, we are on Destination America. Destination America told Dixie Carter, you need someone as a champion who represents America.
“So Dixie just switched the belts. But the thing was, it was the grousing in the company was it was because it wasn’t a wrestling decision based on setting up wrestling characters. It was like the network who’s paying us all this money, told us so we’re going to do what the network said.”
The 2015 title win was Kurt Angle’s sixth and final world title reign in TNA/IMPACT Wrestling. This run lasted 145 days until EC3 beat him later that year.
READ MORE: Kurt Angle On Paul Heyman’s ‘Bottom Of The Third’ Line: I Think He’s Full Of Shit
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