During a recent episode of My World With Jeff Jarrett, Jarrett spoke on the process that went into signing Kurt Angle to TNA. Here’s what he had to say:
I was shocked, I really didn’t believe it. I just said there’s got to be a lot more to this story. From 2000-2005, he was in so many ways a big part of the transition to PG. Oh, by the way, he’s got incredible timing and he just checked every box. Me knowing Vince and the machine of the WWE, I just said there’s more to this, I don’t buy it.
We were only running 26 tapings every other week. Sting didn’t have a boat load of dates. Kurt’s in ring ability, he just knew what to do and all of the above. I’ll never forget the restaurant [by my house] by the lake. I was there, a bunch of families were there, and Bob [Carter] wanted to talk to me about this situation, and I missed the entire dinner out in the parking lot on the cellphone with Bob Carter.
Bob had such an interest in asking me question after question, basically the same type question but Bob had on his investor cap and let’s think this thing through. I said ‘Bob, my biggest concern out of all of this is that we do a two year deal and he goes back [to WWE]. We may be worse off than where we are today.’ That resonated with Bob, he was like, I hear you and I understand that. That’s why the original deal was for five years. We were really starting to hit on all cylinders in a lot of ways. I’m excited just even talking about it today because it would be a really nice step in the direction we needed to be in.
Every card was on the table in so many different ways. I had experience working 20 days a month or whatever it may be. Our schedule at this time was a fixed location in Orlando, much easier. We addressed all of those concerns to the best of our abilities long before the contract was signed.
Credit: My World With Jeff Jarrett. H/T WrestlingInc.