Kurt Angle discussed Paul Heyman lying to him at an ECW show in a new Kurt Angle Show on AdFreeShows.com.
On seeing the ECW Crucifixion angle:
‘You have to understand I’m a Catholic Christian kid from Pittsburgh and to see the crucifixion was really offensive, but back then, I do want to say this because I want to get this off my chest. I didn’t understand the storytelling of pro wrestling and that you want to get the ‘wow’ factor and surprise people and get them excited or pissed off. A lot of emotion is involved in pro wrestling.
Back then, I didn’t get all that. I didn’t understand it. When I saw it, I’m like, ‘Oh my God. This is someone portraying Jesus on the cross. I can’t believe I’m here.’ I was really upset and I went to Paul Heyman and said, ‘I can’t be on the same show as this. You can’t air this show with me on it. If you do, you’re going to hear from my attorney.” Paul said, ‘I didn’t even know it was going to happen.” Ok, he’s the promoter. It’s the main event and he doesn’t know it’s going to happen. He’s full of sh*t. Paul, I love Paul. He’s a great guy but he basically lied to me. I understand why. He’s just trying to take the heat off himself.”
On what he was paid as an amaeteur wrestler:
“My agent told me not to sign a WWE contract, but I don’t think he understood what pro wrestling was all about. I don’t think he had any interest in it, so he didn’t watch it. The terms of the contract was a half million dollars a year for 10 years. That’s guaranteed and you make more if you work more. I never had money so this was like a God send. My family, we were laborers so we never had money. This was the first time it was looking me in the eye and I was like, I have to do this. It was really difficult to pass up. Seeing that type of money at the time when I never had money was incredible. I was overwhelmed. You’re not making hardly any money (amateur). At that time USA Wrestling was paying a stipend for the number one man on the Olympic team of $1,000 a month.
It was pretty bad back then. Now there’s money involved. They make a lot more money. When I won the Gold in the Olympics in ‘96, I made $35,000. That was from the Olympic Committee. That was my prize for winning a gold medal. Now I heard rumors that it’s up to $500,00 to win, some say it was $250,000. I had to fundraise. I didn’t have a lot of money. I wasn’t coaching anymore. My full-time job was training so I had to go out and fundraise. I had to do this to take care of my costs of traveling and food. It was a really hard time to be an amateur athlete, an Olympic athlete back then. I had a hard time making ends meet, but we worked it out. My family, we were a team and we made sure I made just enough to take care of the bills.”
WrestlingNews.co transcribed Angle’s remarks.
