Dutch Mantell says he talked TNA out of putting Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe in the ring together for free while building toward their pay-per-view match.
Speaking on Story Time with Dutch Mantell, Mantell recalled urging the company to protect the first physical meeting between Angle and Joe rather than give viewers the payoff during television tapings. Angle has previously said his first match with Joe produced the highest pay-per-view buy rate in TNA history.
Mantell said he proposed a strict rule for the final television tapings before the pay-per-view.
I said, “Guys, whatever we do, I don’t want to see, and I would suggest that we don’t see, Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe in the same ring together at any time during this show.”
They looked at me like, “Why not?”
Mantell argued that TNA would be giving away something it expected fans to pay to see.
I don’t know if Vince had it or Jeff had it or somebody. I said, “That’s the worst thing we can do. Why would we give them something that we’re expecting them to spend money to go see? We’re going to give it to them for free.”
TNA accepted Mantell’s recommendation and continued building the rivalry without placing Angle and Joe together.
So, they said, “Okay, we’ll do that.” We didn’t even see them in the ring. We just heard them talking about each other back and forth.
Mantell believes the resulting pay-per-view became the biggest in company history.
I think maybe we did the biggest pay-per-view buy that we’ve ever done.
Mantell said TNA creative was never given the exact number of purchases by Dixie Carter.
You never got the exact number of pay-per-view buys that you did because Dixie never gave it.
She would have a meeting and she’d say, “Well, guys, our pay-per-view buy rate last month was 10% more than the month before.”
I didn’t get it. I said, “Wait a minute. It’s 10% more than what? It could be 10% more than 50, which would mean 55, but it doesn’t give you an inkling of how many pay-per-view buys you did.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Story Time with Dutch Mantell, with a h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.
