Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle who is a former six times world champion in WWE and a former six times TNA world heavyweight champion recently looked back at his match against Taz from Royal Rumble 2000. He revealed why WWE booked such a short match.
In Royal Rumble 2000, Taz made his WWE debut after having an amazing spell in the ECW. It was one of the most anticipated debuts in WWE back in the time. The report of this debut was already broken before the event so fans were already cheering his name while Angle was standing inside the ring.
Kurt Angle Looks Back At His Match Against Tazz From Royal Rumble 2000
The debut of Taz was supposed to be a surprise. Kurt Angle was supposed to receive a surprise opponent and it was none other than the debuting Taz. The whole arena went really crazy when they heard the entrance theme of Taz for the first time. Fans were well aware of him coming to WWE.
For this match Angle was undefeated in WWE. But his undefeated streak broke after he faced Taz at Royal Rumble 2000. The match was very short, it was only three minutes long. Angle had had his offenses and it was definitely not a squash. But at the end, he gave up on the Taz Mission.
The way Taz performed in this match it seems like WWE would present him as a main event star or atleast and upper mid card. But that did not happen. His push in WWE slid away quickly. He was definitely a main event star in the ECW where he won the World Heavyweight Championship two times along with some other Championships as well.
But in the way he could only become a lower mid card where he could only win the WWE Hardcore championship three times and the WWE Tag Team Championship one time only. In 2002 he transitioned to commentary never to return in action again in WWE.
Kurt Angle who is a former six times world champion in WWE and a former six times TNA world heavyweight champion recently spoke on the Kurt Angle Show where he looked back at his match against Taz from Royal Rumble 2000. He revealed why WWE booked such a short match. He said;
“I know that Taz was a little bit concerned about his conditioning. He looked great. His physique was great, as good as it ever was, but he was a little bit concerned about his conditioning, and that’s why the match didn’t go very long.”
“I would have loved to have wrestled Taz for 20 minutes, but like I said before, he was more concerned about his conditioning at this point in time. I think he took off a bunch of time. He got his body in shape, but his conditioning wasn’t up to par to where he wanted it to be to have that kind of a match, 20 minutes.”
“They didn’t want me to be the dorky heel anymore. They wanted me to have a little more edge to it. They wanted a little more hardcore music. I didn’t like it. I love my first entrance music. It fit me perfectly and it was very patriotic. The second one was patriotic too, but it was a little bit more hardcore, and they were just trying to change my character a little bit.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription