Former longtime WWE executive Bruce Prichard recently spoke about Kurt Angle’s WWE Hall Of Fame induction and interesting WWE career during a recent episode of his “Something To Wrestle With” Podcast. Below are some of the highlights.
On Kurt Angle initially feeling his character in WWE shouldn’t ever lose a match:
“I met Kurt when he came in. First, he met with Vince. They all went in and met with Vince alone. Afterwards, Vince sent him into my office to talk to him a little bit more about the [professional wrestling] business and get a feel for what Kurt’s desires were, what he was really looking for, what he knew about the business, and what have you. And in that meeting, there was a comment made by Kurt that I kind of just ended the meeting because Kurt made it very clear that being an Olympic gold medalist that he couldn’t possibly ever lose a match. He’s the best there is and no one could ever beat him. No one would ever believe that he could lose a match. So I thanked Kurt for his time and I wished him very well with his gold medal and moved on.”
On Vince McMahon being hands-on with Angle’s introductory vignettes in WWE:
“These [vignettes] were something that was done in the studio and Vince had a heavy hand in and I believe Vince McMahon came up with ‘The Three Is’. I’m not really sure, but the idea behind it was to present Kurt as who he was, but his delivery was a little demeaning.”
On various WWE stars taking exception to Angle’s “real athlete” tag-line:
“Emphasis on the word ‘real’, implying that every other athlete in the WWE is less than real, so it got the ire of quite a few people in the back, like, ‘what the f–k? Is he talking to me? Hell, I’m a real athlete. I’m a real wrestler.”
Prichard added, “I mean, Steve Austin for one, looking at him like, ‘well, Goddamn, is this guy saying I ain’t real?’, so sure, everybody was, even The Undertaker felt it was demeaning and didn’t like the tone of the vignettes. Like, come on guys, it’s a work! But if you can get the talent upset about it and the talent feeling that, then you’ve got the audience.”
Check out the complete episode of Bruce Prichard’s “Something To Wrestle With” podcast at MLWRadio.com.
