WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle recently took to his The Kurt Angle Show podcast, where he discussed why he left the WWE in 2006 to sign with TNA and it is because when you are in WWE, the company is bigger than you, but if you are in TNA, you have a bigger purpose and you are bigger than the company.
Kurt Angle said:
“The reason I signed with TNA, and there’s nothing wrong with this, but when you’re in WWE, it’s a huge company.” “It’s bigger than you. There’s nothing you can do. You can have the greatest career of all time, you’re not going to make a bigger impression on the company itself. TNA, it’s a smaller company and you’re the bigger name in the company. You’re carrying the company on your back and making it into a WWE. You have a purpose that way. When you’re in WWE, you’re never bigger than the product. When you’re in TNA, you are bigger than the product and what’s carrying that product to another level. There’s a bigger purpose in it.”
Kurt Angle also spoke about how he believes he did a good job in making TNA grow to a level it wasn't prior to him joining the company.
Kurt Angle said:
“It was about me proving myself that I could be a formidable player and make a company grow bigger than it was.” “I think I did a good job of that, it wasn’t just me. There were a lot of other wrestlers in that company but I wanted to show that I had a purpose in my life and that purpose was TNA. And I could make this company grow that never became as big as WWE, but there were times where the ratings started getting fairly close. We were doing two million viewers a week, 2.1 million viewers a week, which was a big deal for TNA at the time. It made me feel very good as a representative of the company that I was one of the main reasons for it.”
Kurt Angle then talked about why he didn't like being put in a feud with Samoa Joe when he debuted in TNA as it meant he will be defeating an undefeated top star at the time.
Kurt Angle said:
“I don’t know. I did not like that because Samoa Joe was undefeated.” “I felt like if I came into the company and started out with someone else, Joe and I could work up to each other in six months to a year. Really build our program, but they wanted to slingshot this thing and do it really quickly. Unfortunately, I ended Joe’s undefeated streak the first pay per view I wrestled. It made no sense at all. I just felt like we could’ve built this up, done a lot more pay per view buys if we built it the correct way instead of slingshotting it. That’s what the company wanted, so that’s what I did.”
