WWE legend Kurt Angle has revealed how Vince McMahon convinced him to be the face of ECW’s revival by TRIPLING his salary for pay-per-views. Wrestling’s only Olympic gold medallist was a surprising choice to switch over to the reformed brand in 2006. ECW had become a huge hit with fans in the late 90s due […]
WWE legend Kurt Angle has revealed how Vince McMahon convinced him to be the face of ECW’s revival by TRIPLING his salary for pay-per-views.
Wrestling’s only Olympic gold medallist was a surprising choice to switch over to the reformed brand in 2006.
ECW had become a huge hit with fans in the late 90s due to its extreme and violent nature before the company was bought by McMahon around the same time he purchased WCW in 2001.
With weekly shows Raw and SmackDown proving to be huge hits, McMahon attempted to add a third brand with the repackaged ECW 15 years ago.
And he had decided he wanted the Wrestling Machine Angle to be the main face of it.
The only problem was that the smaller arenas and crowds would mean less money for the Olympic Hero.
But the billionaire came up with a novel way to persuade the Hall of Famer to do it.
On the latest episode of The Kurt Angle Podcast, the 52-year-old said: “ECW was a very popular brand.
“What they were able to do with what they had was nothing short of incredible.
“Vince McMahon buying it and ending up putting it on air, I do understand that, I get it. Just another popular brand that he owns and he’s a part of.”
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Angle continued: “When Vince decided to start ECW, he came to me and said ‘Hey I want you to be the face of this new company that I’m starting, ECW. We’re going to ramp it up and I want you to be the face but I’m going to tell you this. You’re going to work in smaller arenas and make less money.’
“I said ‘Why would I want to do that?’ What he did was, I would do the house shows and TVs and then the PPVs, Vince would triple my money so I would get the same money as I would if I was on Raw or SmackDown.
“He did promise that and did go through with it.”
Angle would only compete on the show, which was eventually axed in 2010, for around four months before he left WWE.
