ECW was always known to be the underdog of the wrestling world and was dubbed the little engine that could. Unfortunately, with numerous financial problems and its competitors having bigger budgets, that little engine had to give up and die. It is hard to believe that it’s been over 15 years since the company declared bankruptcy in April 2001. Kurt Angle has an interesting story related to ECW.
In an episode of “The Kurt Angle Show”, co-host Conrad Thompson asked Angle about the time Vince McMahon urged him to join ECW. Kurt replied,
“Well, Vince [McMahon] approached me. It was, you know, after Judgment day pay-per-view. He said ‘Listen, I want to start a new company, a new promotion and I want you to be the name and face of it. I said, ‘What is it?’ and he said, ‘ECW’ and I said, ‘Well, you know, that’s cool Vince but, you know, what’s in it for me?’. “He said ‘Well actually you’re gonna work in smaller arenas and make less money but I’ll take care of you on the back end’. And I basically said, I told you this before Conrad, I said ‘Why would I want to do that?’ Small arenas, and make less money doesn’t make [sense]’. But Vince McMahon promised what he said, and he backed up his promise. He did take care of me financially.”ADVERTISEMENT
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Kurt Angle was the top guy
Angle believes that Vince picked him because the ECW in the ’90s had their top shooter in their company that was their name and face. That wrestler was Taz and Vince saw Angle as a top shooter in the company in 2006.
Kurt knew McMahon couldn’t do the things quite as risky and extreme as they did in the ’90s. So McMahon at least wanted to do something that was identical to the company back then. Angle thinks Vince was trying to make ECW as identical as he could up to a certain degree.
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