WWE News: Kurt Angle Confirms When He Learned He Was Becoming General Manager Of ‘Monday Night Raw’

When Vince McMahon announced Kurt Angle as the new general manager of Monday Night Raw, it wasn’t a surprise to many people. WWE fans were chanting for Angle when McMahon mentioned he was naming a new general manager because the internet WWE rumors had listed Angle as the replacement for Mick Foley.

However, in an interview with Wrestling Inc., Kurt Angle said the rumors were false because he wasn’t even asked until the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony the Friday before Monday Night Raw. Kurt said that Triple H had told him the rumors were baseless but then approached him about the position anyway that night.

“There was never any talk of me becoming General Manager until recently. A lot of sites that were saying that I was going to be the RAW GM, but they were wrong because I would have known at the time and nobody contacted me.”

With that said, it seems like Kurt Angle was the clear choice to take over the role when Mick Foley left Monday Night Raw. It is possible that the WWE wanted to see how Angle acted at the WWE Hall of Fame and how the fans reacted to Kurt. That went well, with fans chanting for Angle loudly and him leading the fans perfectly through his speech.

Kurt Angle also mentioned how he was lucky that the position came open for him at all. Mick Foley was fired by Stephanie McMahon as an on-air act, but the fact is that he had to leave to have hip replacement surgery. Kurt Angle said this opened up the opportunity for him to return even though he is still not allowed to wrestle in the WWE until he passes a physical, which he plans to take late in 2017.

It seems interesting that the WWE would not ask Kurt Angle if he wanted to take on the position and responsibility until three days before they were to name a new general manager on Monday Night Raw. There is always the chance that the WWE knew Kurt Angle would say yes if asked, so waiting was a smart decision to make.

It also is not news that the WWE waits until the last minute to inform talent about anything. Former SmackDown Live women’s champion Alexa Bliss admitted that she was not told that she was moving to Monday Night Raw until the day that she made her debut there. Heath Slater said that the WWE never told him he was going to Monday Night Raw; he learned when they announced it on Raw.

When it comes to Kurt Angle, he had made it abundantly clear that he wanted to return to the WWE to finish his career there. With Kurt Angle stating his desire to “come home,” it made the decision to name him the Monday Night Raw general manager easy, and they knew that they could wait until the last minute to ask him.

Kurt Angle said he left the WWE before and that it wasn’t on the best of terms. He said that he didn’t want to get clean from his drug and alcohol problems or work full time anymore, so the split was due to different opinions on his future.

However, when he made his return after many years in TNA Impact Wrestling, Kurt Angle said that all seemed forgiven with Vince McMahon. Angle said that McMahon gave him a huge hug when he came back after not speaking to each other for 11 years and that it was really cool to come back and be welcomed like that.

“Vince is the one that came up with the Kurt Angle character and he had a great writer named Brian Gewirtz that worked very hard at molding that character, so I give Vince a lot of credit for the success I’ve had in pro wrestling.”

[Featured Image by WWE]