Kurt Angle Opens Up About TNA Wrestling

Kevin Eck of The Baltimore Sun was backstage for last week's TNA iMPACT tapings. He conducted a series of interviews with talent backstage.

Here are highlights from his talk with Kurt Angle:

Historically, this business has not been great for marriages, especially when the wife also becomes talent. Did you have any trepidation about [Karen Angle] coming into the wrestling world?
When she did her first promo, I was blown away. I was thinking, “Wow, this girl is huge. She can make the company some money.” Jeff Jarrett came to me right afterward. He actually got out of the truck from directing, and we had just gotten backstage after doing the promo in the ring, and he said, “Kurt, she’s huge money.”

I said, “Jeff, that’s the same thing I was thinking when I was in the ring with her.” He said, “Well, will she take a job?” “I said, “You’re going to have to ask her.” She said, “Sure, but I have to be home this many days a month. I can’t do house shows; I can only do TV and pay-per-view. Every once in a while, pay to have my kids come down and go to Disney World while I’m working and it’ll be great.” Thank God, it’s actually brought us closer together. We spend more time together, and it actually did the opposite of what it’s done in the past to others. It’s been great.

Samoa Joe already has main-evented pay-per-views with you. Who are some others that you think will eventually rise up to the main-event level?
Actually, let’s talk about the guys. Samoa Joe isn’t there yet. If you’re going to put him on the same pedestal as me, I don’t think he’s quite there. Can he get there? Yeah. A.J. Styles, is he there? Not yet. He will get there. Robert Roode is a great example. He’s a guy that’s going to end up being a major big-time star. James Storm – another guy that’s mid-cardish right now that’s going to end up being a big star.

Abyss, when he comes back, we’re actually going to back up and redo his whole character and make him more of a monster. He’s going to be a bigger star. We have a lot of talented kids. Kaz is another kid that I think is going to have a big future. He just needs to work a little bit more on his promo skills.

The tag teams are great. The Motor City Machine Guns – even if you split them up and let them go singles, they are exciting and they’re fun to watch; they have so much talent.

Right now, the established guys are me, Kevin Nash, Christian Cage, Sting and Booker T. I’d say that’s the first level. And then you’ve got Abyss, Samoa Joe and A.J. Styles that are right there. And Tomko, I forgot about him. So those guys are right about ready to make it. And the guys right under them are James Storm, Robert Roode. Even guys like Eric Young.

Even though his character is somewhat of a goofball, he’s a great wrestler and people love him. As silly as his character is, people love that kid and he’s very talented. Our X Division is incredible and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. I like wrestling those guys in the X Division. I don’t get to do it enough, but when we do I have a lot of fun.

It’s weird, because WWE has five hours of programming a week, and when I was up there, I’d be looking around and thinking, “There’s really nobody left for me to work with.” I came down here and I was like, “Wow, I can work with this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy – it seemed like the list went on and on.”

I know there are some guys that are even under the guys that I mentioned, but eventually they’re going to get there. I want to wrestle those guys. One guy that’s getting over really big, and his character is a little bit off the wall, is Black Machismo. He’s doing a great job. I guess in TNA there’s a little bit of something for everybody. We have a lot of different characters and stuff like that, but one thing we do have is really good wrestlers.