Kurt Angle Recalls TNA Going Head To Head With WWE Raw – “Big Mistake”

Kurt Angle was opposed to TNA trying to go head-to-head with WWE.

January 4th 2010 was the day when TNA made their debut on Monday night, believing that they could be serious competition to the biggest wrestling company in the world, drawing 1.5 million viewers. The show had considerable star power, with Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan making appearances.

WWE would counter the move on that day by announcing that Bret Hart would be making an appearance for the first time since 1997, which was watched by more than double the audience that watched Impact.

Following the one-off show, the battle would resume again on March 8th before Total Nonstop Action admitted defeat on May 3rd. Angle was with TNA at the time of the ratings clash and strongly opposed it.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Angle stated how he told Dixie Carter that it would be a bad idea because it is impossible to compete with WWE, but Carter still wanted to try:

“Big mistake. Big mistake. You know, I always told the boss Dixie Carter, I said, Listen, there’s no shame of being number two, you know, WWE is a machine and nobody’s gonna pass them up. Not TNA. Nobody, nobody ever. And I said just be happy with number two, but she wanted to be number one. And you know, we took chances and you know, some that backfired on us and we lost a lot of money doing it, but at least we tried.”

Kurt Angle Never Achieved Wrestling Accolade

Widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, many are surprised when they hear that none of Angle’s matches were rated five stars by Dave Meltzer. Angle would comment on this, also stating that he was shocked by the fact.