TOP STORY: THE FUTURE OF KURT ANGLE
After being fired by World Wrestling Entertainment a few weeks ago, Kurt Angle now finds himself in the position of being one of the most sought-after free agents in the history of pro wrestling.
Every single major and minor promotion in wrestling and mixed martial arts, from TNA to Ring Of Honor to UFC has expressed interest in using Angle as soon as his injuries heal. Nobody will admit to it on the record, mostly because Angle’s non-compete clause with World Wrestling Entertainment runs until February and so no concrete plans can be made until sometime in early 2007, if not later. In private, however, the story is far different; anybody and everyone you can think of has either contacted Angle with ideas or discussed it internally.
Two weeks ago, the belief was that Angle would sign with TNA. Many within the company, including Jeff Jarrett, felt like they had the best shot at signing him out of any other company, but nobody took mixed martial arts into consideration because it was believed that Angle would never put his body at risk by putting himself into a situation where he’d get easily overwhelmed by fighters who are much better than him. Today, however, it is almost certain that once his non-compete clause expires, Angle will not sign with TNA, but will take a big-money contract for a UFC match.
If given the right opponent and built up properly, Kurt Angle could make as much money in one night, for one fight, as he did in a good year with World Wrestling Entertainment. While the thought of Angle getting in the Octagon sounds awful at first, the truth is that MMA is a lot easier on your body than wrestling 300 days a year at pro wrestling house shows is. There is a very real possibility that he could be hurt badly, but within MMA also lies the ability for Angle to rest for multiple months at a time between fights.
Internally, WWE knew that when they fired Angle, there was a very good chance that someone in the MMA business would try to put together a fight with former WWE star Brock Lesnar. The Angle/Lesnar fight was discussed and Vince McMahon knew he’d be handing that fight to someone on a golden platter, but things were so bad that he still made the decision to fire Angle. For the record, Brock Lesnar is already under contract for a fight with Hero’s and has another gigantic offer on the table from Calvin Ayre’s new Bodog Fight group, so he wouldn’t be able to take a fight with Angle until his current commitments are up. Even though he’ll never admit it publicly, Dana White realizes that an Angle/Lesnar MMA match would be one of the biggest money-drawing fights of all time, and he’s already made contact with Angle to talk about potential fights.
Apart from a Lesnar fight, UFC has also proposed a fight with Daniel Puder. There’s interesting backstory there and it’s no doubt that the fight would do huge numbers among hardcore fight fans, but it’s not nearly the draw that a Lesnar bout would be. Another major promoter (rumored to be Pride) is trying to put together an Angle/Bob Sapp fight, but that one would never fly in the United States. In Japan, however, a fight like that would likely do huge numbers and would possibly approach anything that Pride has ever done.
The real question is this: can Kurt Angle, at his age and with the way his body has broken down, be a legitimate competitor in mixed martial arts, or would he be a one-night freak show attraction stuck out there exclusively to draw a huge PPV number? Given Angle’s history and desire to excel at everything he does, it’s highly doubtful that he would take the step unless he felt certain that he could perform at a high level. Granted, Angle has convinced himself of a lot of things in the past and could tell himself that he’d be a good fighter, but the reality is that it’ll be dangerous for any promotion to put him in a situation where he could be badly hurt or even killed because of neck injuries.
If Angle were to return to pro wrestling, it would either be for a Japanese company or for World Wrestling Entertainment. TNA is out of the picture at this point, because Angle doesn’t want to anger Vince McMahon, and McMahon believes that TNA is his competition. Angle has gone so far as to pitch ideas to McMahon for a WrestleMania return, but McMahon hasn’t even considered them at this point. The fact that McMahon knew he’d be handing UFC a golden ticket and chose to get rid of Angle anyway is a testament to how severe of an off-camera problem Kurt had become.
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– Randy Orton failed the recent Raw drug test and will be docked his downside guarantee for either 30 or 60 days. Under the new policy, he won’t be pulled from the road and will even be reimbursed for his travel expenses, but he still stands to lose somewhere in the range of $60,000 as a result.
– The company recently put together some ideas for Bob Sapp coming in, but nothing has happened yet.
– Justin Credible is AWOL from the company. Nobody has heard from him in more than a week, and he’s no-showed everything in sight.
– Barbie Blank (Kelly) and Andrew Martin (Test) are now an item.
– Batista is no longer a golden child. Internally, the feeling is that he’s lost the magic he once had and has gotten progressively worse in-ring to the point where they felt the need to pair him with Dave Finlay in the hopes of getting his confidence up again. The Booker/Batista program had originally been planned to continue for two months, but they decided that it wasn’t going anywhere and had the blowoff match on Smackdown. People are using the situation to kiss up to Triple H, saying that he was able to get Batista over when nobody else can.
– JBL is not planning on returning to the ring at this point. He’s realized that he can’t fight the aging process and would rather focus on his new Wall Street job, where he took a position with an investment bank.
– Ken Kennedy is gaining a lot of fans backstage, including Vince McMahon. While they realize that he’s not exactly a master of in-ring work, they feel his personality and charisma is enough to take him to the next level. He’s one of those guys that Vince and Stephanie have latched on to, and for whatever reason they see him being a huge star. He’s going into a program with Lashley for the United States title at this point.
– There are no plans to end the DX angle in the foreseeable future. It was originally supposed to last just a few months, but Vince and Stephanie McMahon are both behind the angle and aren’t listening to others who tell them that it’s ridiculous to watch old men try to act like rebellious teenagers. There are no plans to add new members to the group, although early in the summer Vince decided he wanted to bring back Road Dogg and Billy Gunn for the angle. It was nixed by HHH after Gunn gave an interview saying that if he ever saw Helmsley again, he’d punch him in the face.
– There have been no serious talks about bringing Hall and Nash in for an nWo/DX angle, but it has come up. Neither Hall or Nash want to do house shows, and it’ll be a long shot to bring Hall back in after he screwed up so badly in 2002.
– For those wondering why Henry Godwinn was signed, it’s because he’s good friends with Triple H. Godwinn was brought in for a tryout a few weeks back and stunk up the arena, but his friendship with Helmsley was enough to get him a job. He’ll be used on Smackdown.
– Joey Mercury is still at a rehab center in Atlanta. He was sent to the center at the same time as Chris Masters, and Masters is back, so it’s believed that Mercury’s issues were far more severe than originally thought.
– Believe it or not, but the recent antics from Chris Kanyon at a house show and his online rantings might have helped him land a job.
– WWE has changed the job title of “agents” to “producers”.
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– The company still has not made a decision on Jake Roberts. He’s had several meetings for ideas with Jeff Jarrett, but they are wary of using him given his history. The company believes he’s one of the most fondly-remembered stars from the 80’s and could be extremely effective in a manager-type role as a speaker for someone who can’t cut a promo.
– The Goldberg talks are dead, at least for now. They aren’t going to pay him the kind of salary he needs until they get two hours for Impact, and that issue has gone by the wayside at this point. Goldberg wanted seven figures for a one-year deal and it makes no financial sense for the company to do that unless they have two hours to work with every week. The feeling is that a Goldberg signing would indicate that they’re directly trying to compete with WWE and with only an hour a week, they have no chance of doing that.
– Team 3D has signed a new deal and will return in the build-up for Bound For Glory.
– TNA had opened up negotiations to bring in Daniel Puder, but once the UFC/Angle talks started up he stopped calling TNA back. Jeff Jarrett wanted to bring him in for a program with Samoa Joe and felt like it could be a program that could retain some of the Ultimate Fighter lead-in audience that they are so effective at losing.
