When he was the ruthless head of World Wrestling Entertainment, there didn’t seem to be much that could spook Vince McMahon. Whether taking on, and eventually vanquishing, his rivals, including WCW and ECW, or federal courts in the early 1990s, McMahon seemed willing to take on anyone and everyone, without fear. But this was not always the case.
A former WWE Champion, and indeed a WWE Hall of Famer, decided that he needed to have a frank conversation with McMahon about his future, not only in the company, but also in life. And this sent McMahon into a panic.
The year is 2006, and one of WWE’s top stars at the time is undergoing a change of scenery, having just been drafted from Raw to the revamped ECW brand, to bring his technical savvy to the world of extreme (or what turned out to be WWECW, as fans would later christen it).
However, he is also struggling with his health, and an alarming addiction to painkillers to get him through. The man in question is the 1996 Olympic gold medalist, Kurt Angle.
Speaking on The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway podcast, Angle said that it was the painkiller addiction which caused him to consider his future, rather than a lack of creative control or direction.
Hall of Famer Pleads Vince McMahon to Fire Him
“I met with Vince. I’m in his office, and I’m talking to him about my state of mind. Shane McMahon is in there too. Vince hands me five pages of text messages I’ve sent him. I went outside and started crying, then I went back into the office.
“I was texting Vince while I was taking pills at night. I was texting him because he wouldn’t answer the phone when I called. I was threatening him, saying, ‘Vince, I’m going to kick your a** when I see you, I’m going to F you up when I see you. Wait till I see you, Vince. I’m going to beat the s*** out of you.’ He had three pages of text. Typed on paper, of my messages to him. I’m reading them in the meeting like, ‘I don’t remember saying this stuff! Vince, I’m going to kick your a**?’ I was shocked, saying, ‘I don’t remember this.’
“Vince looked at me and asked, ‘You want to kick my a**?’ Then he got up, took his jacket off, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this guy wants to fight me!’ I put my head down and realised, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ I went outside and started crying, then I came back in, and I looked at Vince and said, ‘I’m sorry, but if you don’t let me go, I think I’m going to kill myself–overdoes on pills.’ Vince put his hands up and said, ‘You’re released.’ He said, ‘Come back in six months, and we’ll give you the same contract.”
Kurt Angle would return to WWE eventually in 2017; the year he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and would have his final match at WrestleMania 35 against Baron Corbin before being released again in 2020.
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