Kurt Angle On If Triple H Resented His Rise, Wanting Daniel Bryan Match, RVD, British Bulldog In HOF

Thanks to WrestlingINC.com reader Gavin Horne for sending in this report from Kurt Angle's Q&A in Newcastle this past Friday night. Make sure to check back tomorrow for many more highlights from the Q&A:

This past Friday night, I attended "An Evening with Kurt Angle" at the Leicester City Football club as he is almost finished on his U.K. Golden truth Tour by Triple M Promotions. Some photos and videos can be found from all of the weeks events at this link.

Kurt was asked if he could wrestle anyone from WWE, who would it be and why, and he immediately answered "Daniel Bryan, without a doubt." This got a big pop from the crowd and a "Yes!" chant. He went on to explain that if Daniel Bryan can get himself fit and healthy, then they "will" make something happen. (This was one of many little hints dropped throughout the evening that Kurt may return to WWE when his TNA contract is up, though at no point did he actually confirm this.)

Kurt was asked what he thought about The British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith and whether he should be inducted to the Hall of Fame. Kurt responded "Absolutely, yes" and went on to say that while he never watched that era of pro wrestling when it happened, he had watched a lot of it when he did get into the WWE. He said that up until signing for the WWE, he only really knew a few wrestlers like Hulk hogan because of the Saturday morning TV show and Randy Savage because of the Slim Jim adverts. He then said that when he did watch those years in wrestling there were people who stood out to him and Davey Boy was one of them. He said he admired his style and physicality.

A female fan asked him who (other than Vince McMahon, to which Kurt laughed and said "you already knew!") was the most unsafe worker he had wrestled. After joking about Vince, he went on to say that while he didn't find him to be an unsafe worker, every time he wrestled Rob Van Dam he always ended up getting injured. He went through a list of injuries including a split lip, broken rib and others and laughed that he always enjoyed working with RVD but for some reason RVD would always get him hurt.

Someone also asked Kurt what he felt when he was trying to put Shane McMahon through the glass at 2001's King of the Ring. Straight away Kurt acknowledged that it is one of his fans favorite matches but that he deserves no credit for what happened in that match. He said that Shane put together the whole sequence of events along with Al Snow and so Shane personally deserves all of the respect for story told in that match. He then said that whilst Shane was never the most athletic of people and only wrestled half a dozen times, he always had a way of stealing the show and he had a lot of respect for him because of that. Going back to the glass, Kurt said that it was supposed to have been sugar glass and that the guy who ordered the props had incorrectly ordered Plexi Glass instead. He said that Vince was so paranoid that people would break the glass before the match, he banned all fireworks from peoples entrances and also made sure that noone else went near that part of the stage. When it came time to throw shane through the glass, he said he threw Shane into it via a German suplex and remembers hearing Shane's head smack against it and then on the floor and thought to himself "this is the strongest sugar glass in the world!". He then tried again to throw Shane through the glass and again it didn't break so he spoke to Shane and said "we can't do this, we need to move on" and Shane replied "F@ck you, you are throwing me through the glass!". Angle then joked "F@ck me? F@ck You!" and was able to throw Shane through the glass on this next attempt. He said that he was relieved briefly before remembering that he now had to get them both back through the second pane as well and to do so he had to through Shane face first through the second pain of glass. He then said that Shane had 35 stitches due to the glass, and he personally landed on a piece which sliced open his arm and required 17 stitches. He again gave credit to Shane McMahon for being tough and putting together such a brutal match as he had never really done anything like this because he was new to the business having only debuted a year or so before and was still a mat wrestler. He then said that after the match they both spent the night in the hospital getting stitched and he had also broken his tail bone, and he remembers high fiving Shane as they were both sitting in chairs covered in blood because they knew they had put on such an excellent match. He then said that when Vince saw them his attitude was less favorable and joked that he called them idiots because now he couldn't use either of them on TV for months due to being so beat up.

Someone commented to Kurt that they had heard that Triple H had resented Kurt's meteroic rise in the WWE and had held him back in some ways, and then asked if Kurt ever knew of people being pissed off with him being new and in the main event. Kurt replied that to his knowledge he didn't personally think that Triple H had done so, but absolutely is aware that people in the locker room disliked him for a while at the beginning because he was brought straiught up. He then said he couldn't blame anyone for that either as he too would be annoyed if he had been working for 15 years only to be leapfrogged by someone just because they were a world class athelete. He said he was very lucky to be put into programs with people like Austin, The Undertaker, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Triple H and The Rock because they knew his skillset was limited for the first year or so of his WWE career and they protected him because they knew that they could make money with him. He praised all of these wrestlers saying that without them he wouldn't have ever been able to improve and stay on top.

All in all it was a very entertaining evening and is the third such event I have attended ran by Triple M Promotions. I would highly recommend them to anyone in the UK as they are a fun evening with a lot to offer and on the evenings that I have personally attended like this one the Superstars are very open with answering any questions put to them. Triple M are also hosting evenings like this in March and April 2016 for both Ken Shamrock and Bret Hart respectively and they will also be hosting a wrestling event in Coalville, Leicestershire on Saturday April 23rd 2016 where Bret "Hitman" Hart will be a Special guest and the card will be headlined by ICW and TNA star Grado. Tickets and listings for these events can be found on either Triple M's facebook page or website.