This week’s “Kurt Angle Show” covered a variety of topics including Kurt’s short Rumble match with Taz, his theme music changing, and his thoughts on the NWO arriving in the WWE.
Kurt Angle explaining why his match with Taz at Royal Rumble only lasted 3 minutes:
“I know that Taz was a little bit concerned about his conditioning. He looked great. His physique was great, as good as it ever was, but he was a little bit concerned about his conditioning, and that’s why the match didn’t go very long.”
Angle continued, “I would have loved to have wrestled Taz for 20 minutes, but like I said before, he was more concerned about his conditioning at this point in time. I think he took off a bunch of time. He got his body in shape, but his conditioning wasn’t up to par to where he wanted it to be to have that kind of a match, 20 minutes.”
Kurt Angle explaining why the WWE altered his ring entrance music the first time:
“They didn’t want me to be the dorky heel anymore. They wanted me to have a little more edge to it. They wanted a little more hardcore music. I didn’t like it. I love my first entrance music. It fit me perfectly and it was very patriotic. The second one was patriotic too, but it was a little bit more hardcore, and they were just trying to change my character a little bit.”
Kurt Angle was asked if he had any issues with the NWO (Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, & Scott Hall) coming into WWE in 2002:
“Well, they are three of the top stars, and possibly you can be pushed underneath them. You heard stories that they were really political and they were always trying to fight for themselves and fend for themselves, always wanted to get tight with the boss and weasel their way to the top. I didn’t see that when they came there. I think Vince kept them under wraps or their attitudes changed, but there was no problem with them at all.”
He continued, “The first night they were there, Vince messed with them big time. They had to do pretapes until 3 o’clock in the morning. Vince kept them after the show. He pushed the pretapes back until the show was over and made them do it over and over again. I guess he was making them pay for leaving WWE back in the ‘90s.”
“I didn’t have a problem with them. I don’t think anybody had a problem with them. I will tell you this. There was one time when Vince was really concerned because I had to make Hogan tap out at the King of the Ring. He wanted to make sure, and he told me Hulk Hogan would talk him out of it, so he wanted me to be in the room with Hulk Hogan when he told Hulk that he was going to tap out to me.”
“I was really nervous. It’s Hulk Hogan, the biggest name in the history of the business, and here I’m going to make him tap out for the first time in his career, and Vince wants me there to make sure that he abides by it. It just blew my mind. I was nervous and scared. I was inexperienced. I didn’t know what to think or expect, and here Vince wanted me to be there just to make sure Hulk Hogan didn’t talk him out of it. I guess there were times when Hogan was political in the past, but he wasn’t at this point in time.”
“In TNA, Hogan was great to work with. Nash was great to work with. Scott Hall was great to work with. I didn’t have problems at all with them.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “The Kurt Angle Show on AdFreeShows.com” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
