Kurt Angle wasn’t exactly gung-ho about his first feud with Samoa Joe in TNA Wrestling.
Angle signed with TNA back in 2006 after an eight-year run with WWE. In his first pivotal feud with the company, Angle went to war with “The Samoan Submission Machine” Samoa Joe. It was a memorable rivalry for many fans who watched the product back then but the Olympic gold medalist took issue with it.
During an episode of The Kurt Angle Show, Angle discussed why he didn’t like the idea of going one-on-one with Joe right away.
“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.”
Joe did eventually pick up a massive victory over Angle. He defeated Kurt for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship back in 2008 in a Title vs. Career match. Joe’s reign lasted 182 days and it was his only run with the championship.
Today, Angle is retired from pro wrestling while Joe is featured on the NXT brand for WWE. Joe recently was forced to relinquish the NXT Championship due to an injury.
