The Kurt Angle Show - Becoming Extreme [Show Notes] (Patreon)

We’ve been trying a lot of new things on The Kurt Angle Show and today, we’re going to tell this story in a new way. First, we’re going to go through Kurt’s journey to the extreme. Then, we’re going to give you the keys! You sent in so many questions that we had almost eight pages AFTER we cut out the duplicate questions!

In milk terms, it’s a half-and-half episode.

Let’s get started on our journey today. Kurt Angle becomes extreme!

Vince Asks Kurt For A Big Favor

You’ve alluded to this before in several episodes but...it began when Vince McMahon came to you and told you he wanted you to be the face of the new ECW, right? (What did Vince say?)

(Do you recall when Vince approached you about this? Was it before or after your match with Mark Henry at Judgment Day 06?)

The single most asked question by fans online was if you felt like this was a demotion. So let’s talk about this for a second.

(Did you feel like it was a demotion?)

(Did you ask Vince if it was a demotion?)

(Is this around the time you’re sending Vince text messages saying you want to fight him? When did those start in respect to Vince telling you that you were going to ECW? Even if you don’t, a lot of people are going to correlate the two.)

NOTE: We can tease the story of Vince calling you to his office and taking his jacket off to fight for an upcoming/later episode.

(Why do you think Vince decided that you were to be the new face of ECW?)

News and Notes

It was expected all week (May 29) that an announcement would be made on 5/23 that the new ECW show would be signed for the Sci-Fi channel and debut on 6/13. With so much going on, things got crazy on the deal….The show will air on Tuesday night, either at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., for one hour; Sci-Fi, after first agreeing to a 52 week commitment, started getting some cold feet on the project, and at last word had only committed to 12 episodes. Because of the WWE's exclusive TV deal with NBC Universal, USA Network not interested in giving the show a good time slot, and Bravo expressing only mild interest, WWE has very little leverage in this deal.

(ECW is as hot as it has ever been, as a name, but even so, the company is struggling to find a TV home for it. Was that part of Vince’s reason for wanting you to be the face of the new brand? Did he ever mention using you to sell the show?)

More on this subject...

Bonnie Hammer, who was a strong force in bringing WWE back to the USA Network, is in charge of the Sci-Fi Channel and wants more WWE branded pro wrestling [Meltzer said because she just wants ratings for the channel]. Those underneath her were in an uproar over the decision, because they don't think pro wrestling fits within the theme of the [channel]. Worse, when word got out from our web site report, the message board at the channel saw the hardcore Sci-Fi fans livid that they were going to add pro wrestling to the station. There is a feeling that the network needs to increase its ratings, and the final call, by Jeff Zucker, would be ratings vs. station theme. The belief is ECW would be, from the start, one of the highest rated shows on the network. It is also a genuine concern that the network would pressure ECW to run at least one Sci-Fi friendly storyline.

(Is there a lot of concern, either within the locker room or within the office, about how ECW will fit in on a science fiction channel? Did you ever think you might end up wrestling a zombie or something?)

As things stand, the first show will be from the Smackdown tapings on 6/13 in Trenton. The show will either air on a one or two hour tape delay, or go live. Live would be a significantly greater expense due to needing to purchase satellite time weekly, which isn't cheap. If the decision is made to go live, then ECW would be done in the arena after Smackdown, instead of before, as had been the plan. This would give them more leeway to do extreme things without having to worry about burning out the crowd for the Smackdown show that would follow. If the show isn't live, it would have to be taped most nights from 7 to 8 p.m., at least when shows are done on the East Coast. Being taped after Smackdown would be a different type of handicap, as fans would be tired from the two-hour Smackdown taping and at this point, it would be a show with considerably less starpower.

I feel like this is something we can break-down into much more detail here…

At this point in time, you were still a Smackdown star. It hadn’t been announced that you would be moving to ECW, although you might have already known.

(What’s the feeling like in the Smackdown locker room - which has been dealing with star power shortages already - when they learn ANOTHER show will be taped on their night?)

(It felt like the ideal solution was to have ECW go live after Smackdown and tear the house down. Did you have a preference? It feels like you’d want to perform on a live show...right?)

(When the decision is made to make ECW a pre-taped show...is that a let down for the wrestlers? A disappointment maybe?)

It is official that after One Night Stand, there will be a second PPV show added on 12/3. This means WWE will be promoting a Survivor Series show in Philadelphia, and come back seven days later with an ECW show, and two weeks after that run Armageddon with the Smackdown brand in Richmond, VA. With domestic PPV numbers down so significantly over the past two years, partially due to adding the extra shows, Meltzer speculated that this was going to be a bad idea. The company would be competing with itself. And as we know, December to Dismember ended up being one of the worst shows ever for WWE.

(You were gone by then...and a lot had gone wrong with ECW by the time December arrived...but is there anyway the December PPV could have even possibly succeeded?)

There’s another major aspect to the story surrounding the revival of ECW I’m curious to get your take on. Paul Heyman. Reports were that he would be the main creative force behind the new ECW brand...but Meltzer seemed to know it was just a matter of time before that relationship ended. He wrote that Paul didn’t get along with Verne, he didn’t get along with people in WCW, and had issues with the WWE’s management team as well.

(Is the Paul Heyman relationship with the office a major concern for the ECW brand stars at this time? It seems like a lot could be riding on his relationship with the McMahons…)

An interesting news story from this time indicated that a planned Chris Benoit vs. Dean Malenko match for the ECW PPV had been canceled… Paul Heyman reportedly had the idea to do a Benoit vs. Kurt Angle submission match. The Observer reported that you (Angle) were mad on 5/23 in Bakersfield when you got word...but others felt Benoit was just as unhappy to learn his match with his friend was nixed. “Benoit had several things promised to him that haven’t been delivered and Malenko had gone into training for his return that was taken off the books.”

We will be talking about this PPV in detail in an upcoming episode but….

(Do you recall being upset to learn of plans to work another submission match against Benoit, this time five years later at the ECW show? Why were you upset about this?)

More Hiccups

Observer: Last week, Vince McMahon believed he had reached a deal with Bonnie Hammer and the Sci-Fi Network for a 9 p.m. show every Tuesday night. He made the decision that ECW would go live, with Smackdown being taped from 6:45-8:45 p.m. every Tuesday when they are on the East Coast, an hour earlier Central time, with the live ECW hour ending the show. On the West Coast, it would be ECW from 6-7 p.m. live, followed by Smackdown from 7:15 to 9:15 p.m.

But by the time McMahon told those who needed to know about his plan, the Sci-Fi network changed the plan and moved the airtime to IO p.m. Nearly a week later, with.two weeks before the first show, McMahon still hadn't made the decision as to whether the show would air live every week at 10 p.m., with Smackdown being beforehand, whether he would use the previous times and ECW would air on a one hour tape delay, or tape ECW first, having it air on a three hour tape delay, and just go live on the West Coast

(This is a disaster. Do you hear about all of these roadblocks as they’re happening at the time? If so, what are you thinking? It’s got to be a source of anxiety…)

The 2006 Brand Extension Draft

Let’s get to the 2006 Brand Extension Draft. It happened at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington on May 29, 2006. It was a pretty simple draft: Paul Heyman, the ECW representative, would get two draft picks from Smackdown and Raw for the newly created ECW brand.

Everyone knew who the first pick would be: Rob...Van...Dam. He went on to beat Cena for the WWE title a few weeks later.

But then, Heyman surprised everyone. He picked you.

Observer: In the beginning, this new ECW will have some similarities, familiar older faces, some of the same people in charge, something resembling a similar look and playing some of the similar haunts. But in the end, success or failure, if it does make it, the only similarities will be the initials, perhaps more blood than WWE would have, and more frequent table breaking.

The first announcement was Heyman would get one draft choice each from Raw and Smackdown, which ended up being Rob Van Dam, as everyone knew, and Kurt Angle, which was a surprise. There will be more additions from the existing roster that haven't been fully determined, under the storyline that if anyone wants to leave for ECW they will be allowed to.

(Did Vince want to keep the decision to draft you to ECW top secret until it happened on TV? Are there different steps you take when working on a secret storyline to keep it from getting out?)

Observer: The choice of Angle is interesting. While Smackdown seems and is depleted with the recent short-term losses of JBL due to injury and Chris Benoit due to a number of reasons, it will also be bolstered in the next few weeks with the returns of Batista and Randy Orton, the two men who had been groomed for the past year to carry the brand. Angle's move to Smackdown was as an emergency replacement for Batista.

On first thought, putting Angle on ECW is a smart move. He's got credibility of being a major star for seven years. The company needs ratings fast because they are only on a trial run with Sci-Fi. Whether the brand makes it or flops will not be determined by what ECW was, but what this version can be, and it has been very clear that Rob Van Dam isn't going to be enough to carry the brand, and people like Terry Funk and Mick Foley won't be there after One Night Stand.

Meltzer would write around this time that RVD’s peak had been in 2001 and at this point, he’s an established mid-carder who could be a star, just not the franchise character he could have been five years before.

(Did Vince say to you that he thought he needed more than just RVD to carry the brand?)

I’m curious if you might have been one of the selling points to the Sci-Fi Channel, too.

(With the difficult negotiations, did you ever get the impression that you were here to help save the deal?)

Here’s the good stuff from the Observer.

Angle was said to have been very unhappy at the 5/23 tapings in Bakersfield, and this may have been part of the reason. Upon more thinking, this is probably the worst move possible for Angle. Angle's body has broken down badly. ECW is being pushed as a more violent promotion, and even though Paul Heyman called it a new direction of ECW (falling in line with Vince McMahon's thinking that ECW was just crappy hardcore wrestling, not acknowledging ECW gave Eddy Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Rey Misterio Jr. their first non-Spanish major pushes in North America when WWF and WCW dismissed them all as being too small to ever make it outside of Japan and Mexico). Even if Angle is pushed as the wrestler in the group, and kept away from the dangerous stunts, he will be performing three nights per week at house shows before a far more demanding fan base, and generally speaking, working with sloppier wrestlers and those willing to take more risks. On the fourth night, he will be on Smackdown television, and fans there will also be expecting something different than what they had seen already on the show because of the ECW moniker. In short, whatever limited time his career may have had will be shortened, probably greatly, if this move isn't rescinded within a few months and he's put back to where he can take more care of himself and has performers to work with less likely to mess up.

A lot to unpack here…

(Was the report that you were upset in Bakersfield about this, about the Malenko/Benoit match being pulled, or something else?)

(Meltzer felt like the move to ECW was going to be one that put even more demand and toll on your body at a time when you were at a breaking point. Was he right?)

(Did you hope Vince would change his mind?)

Finally, Meltzer brought up the money.

In addition, and I don't know exactly how his pay deal works, but one would suspect you aren't going to earn nearly the same money main eventing before 1,000 fans per night as you would before 3,000. Plus, unless the ECW wrestlers are part of the Raw/Smackdown PPVs, Angle went from five PP\/ payoffs for the rest of this year in a key position on every card, to perhaps four, if he's booked strongly for SummerSlam and Survivor Series. For him, taking one for the team is a lose-lose. The financial aspect wouldn't be such a big deal if the physical situation wasn't such a big deal.

(You’ve talked about this before, too. Vince was going to pay you extra on the pay-per-views to compensate for what you would lose by going to this new, smaller brand. Can you explain that?)

(Were you concerned enough about the physical aspect or were you in denial about how much more you could take here?)

(Do you recall any long-term creative plans for you in ECW that we never got to see?)

As we have already talked about, this draft takes place just a few weeks before ECW One Night Stand 2006. We’re covering that show coming up here on The Angle Pod. At that show, you’ll be facing friend of the show Randy Orton. Only, you’ll be an ECW star and he will be a Raw star. It’s crazy how fast things are about to change in the WWE.

But we’re just getting started with this episode. So many fan questions came in, we decided to make this one a HALF-AND-HALF. Let’s jump into your questions!