Kurt Angle On First Meeting With Vince McMahon In 11 Years, If Hulk Hogan Had Issues Tapping To Him
As noted, 2017 WWE Hall of Fame inductee Kurt Angle recently participated in a Reddit Q&A to promote his new addiction recovery app, AngleStrong, and to look back at his wrestling career. Below are some more highlights:
If Hulk Hogan had a problem tapping to the ankle lock in their match:
"I didn't think he was going to do it! You know, I remember meeting with Vince McMahon and Hogan came into the room. Vince had us together and we were staring each other in the eyes – it was a pretty intense meeting. Hogan and I were sitting where our knees were touching. Vince was just off to the side. He basically just said, we were looking at each other and I hear Vince say, 'Alright Terry, you're going to tap out to Kurt tonight.'
"Terry paused for about five seconds and he looked me in the eyes and he said, 'Okay. Let's do this.'
"I was shocked! You know, you hear some rumors about Hulk Hogan, that he has difficulty putting guys over. But he didn't do that. So the whole rumors were thrown out the window for me. And whether they are true or not, I don't believe them.
"I think Hogan has always been about the business, but also, Hogan is and was the business. So, I think, looking out for the business, he had to go over 98% of the time because it was always good for the business. I don't think Terry ever had a thing about what was best for business. I just think he always did the right thing, it was just for almost all his matches, the best thing was for Hulk Hogan to win. So, I've never had any hard feelings about Hulk Hogan. I think that if anything, I respected him more that night for tapping out to me."
Meeting with Vince McMahon for the first time in eleven years:
"I love Vince. It was great to see him last week. I finally got to see him after eleven years. It was like we picked up right where we left off before the horrible meeting I had with him back in 2006.
"Vince was always great to me. He treated me very well. He went above and beyond for me in many ways. He tried to help me in so many ways. He even tried to check me into rehab when I quit in 2006.
"Talking to Vince again, I just had to tell him why I was so angry, why I was lashing out at him and the company back then. It was just, when you're knee deep in addiction, you always blame others for everything that's going on. So I apologized to him and he didn't even let me finish apologizing. He just hugged me.
"Vince is a really loving individual. He always will be. There are a lot of things. I believe he needs to have filters around his life. He's not gullible because he's very intelligent, very smart. But, he also likes to please people and make them feel special. You don't want people to take advantage of him around him all the time because they can take his, like I said he's not gullible and he's not dumb, he just, once he's emotionally invested in you, he's such a good guy. I really believe he needs people around him to filter out the people that have bad intentions because Vince is a good guy.
"He'll try to make you happy and give you what you want. He's not one of those people that play hardball. He just is a guy that will talk at your level, even though he's more sophisticated, smarter and more intelligent. He doesn't talk to people like he is above them. He talks at their level. That is why he is always able to communicate with anybody."