Kurt Angle Recalls TNA Scrapping Bobby Roode's World Title Win At Bound For Glory 2011
“I’ll be the first to admit that I did not ask to keep the title. As a matter of fact, I was severely injured.”
Much has been said of Hulk Hogan’s tenure in TNA Wrestling, with Hogan and Bischoff pushing their friends and seemingly ignoring TNA’s home-grown talent whilst engaging WWE in an ill-fated wrestling war.
One of the biggest decisions of the Hogan/Bischoff administration concerned Bobby Roode, who was scheduled to defeat TNA World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle at Bound For Glory 2011, before the finish was changed and Angle retained.
Angle himself has since spoken about the event, saying the following on the Kurt Angle Show podcast:
“I was expected to drop the title to Bobby. They were doing all these vignettes with Bobby and his family talking about how hard of a worker he was and what a great family man he was. It was all set up to drop the title to him. I don’t know what happened. It wasn’t me. I’ll be the first to admit that I did not ask to keep the title. As a matter of fact, I was severely injured. I had a torn hamstring, not a pulled hamstring, torn. It was almost torn all the way in half. My whole leg was black all the way down to the heel of my foot. I didn’t even know if I could wrestle at Bound for Glory.
“They didn’t tell me until the day of the show at Bound for Glory that I was going to retain the title. I was a little pissed off because I didn’t want to carry the title any longer because of my injury. I wanted to rest it up, heal up, and come back in perfect form. Unfortunately, they decided against Bobby getting the title which was kind of a downer for the PPV, Bound for Glory, especially with us being on last. It was a real flat finish.”
It has been long speculated that the decision not to give Roode the win was a Hogan decision, and Angle speculated on why the decision was made:
“I talked to creative and I told them about my injury and I didn’t think it was a good idea. I didn’t want to win because I didn’t want to have a next match, especially with my injury. They said, ‘Your next match is only going to be 10 seconds.’ I said, ‘Well that’s kind of stupid. Why don’t I just drop the title tonight and have Bobby Roode have his moment?’ I think what the reason was, the reason why they went against that, was because they wanted Bobby Roode to have a world championship moment, and I think they felt that I couldn’t have the match that I was expected to because of my injury. I think that’s why everything changed. Because of my injury, they felt Bobby Roode wouldn’t have the moment he deserved, so he would be able to earn it against James Storm down the line when James Storm beat me the next day in 10 seconds with a superkick. That’s all I had to do in that match, which is the quickest match I’ve ever been in. I knew that Bobby Roode should have won that match at the PPV. That’s just how I feel.”
Roode eventually defeated Storm for the title, and became one of the greatest heels in the business, as well as one of the best TNA World Champions in history.
H/T: WrestlingNews.co
