Kurt Angle Reveals Details Behind Working With Steve Austin In 2001

WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle spoke about working with fellow WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin in 2001, how much of the skits they had were scripted, and how Chris Benoit ripped up DDP’s script for a match.

On working with fellow WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin in 2001:

“Vince decided to put us together because we were injured. We were no good to the company performance wise. Vince didn’t want us sitting at home. We were his two biggest stars, and he wanted to utilize us in a positive manner. Vince decided to have pretapes of Austin, me, and Vince where we would be doing some funny, entertaining stuff. I thought it was a great call on Vince’s part. The chemistry was unbelievable. We didn’t even know we had chemistry until we did it. We didn’t practice or anything. Vince would bring up an idea that day, and say, ‘Hey, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to get done. This is the topic. Kurt, you start. I’ll chime in. Austin, you chime in and say your thing.’ It was mainly ad-libbed. It wasn’t scripted much. It was just talked about. We would do it. The thing is, at the beginning we were laughing so hard half way through the pretape, that the pretape would get ruined. Vince would get pissed. He said, ‘Listen, you son of a b**ches laugh anymore, I’m fining you $2,000 for every time you laugh.’ We were like, ‘Ok, we’ll get serious about this Vince’, but it was so damn funny hearing Austin. His personality is so incredible. He has so much talent ad-libbing. He’s one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. Austin was so entertaining doing those pretapes. So was Vince. I had so much fun doing them. It was the funnest time in my career.”

 
On how much of the skits they had were scripted:

“It’s 10% scripted, and 90% ad-libbed. I was scared to death because I didn’t have a lot of experience. When I started, I got all scripts. I studied them, and I have a photographic mind so I can read word for word, study the scripts, and say exactly what it said on paper. Here he’s telling me, ‘Here’s an idea. Just go do it.’ I’m like, holy s**t. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to ad lib, but I picked up on it pretty quickly, and I didn’t realize I could ad lib. Austin and Vince helped me a lot though. They helped me quite a bit.”

On Chris Benoit ripping up DDP’s script for a match:

“Chris Benoit told me a story where DDP scripted a match where it was 12 pages long, typed. Chris was like, ‘You know what? Screw this.’ He tore it up, and he left the arena. DDP was looking for him to go over the match, and he couldn’t find Chris anywhere. Chris didn’t show up until five minutes before the match started so that DDP couldn’t have his scripted match. Chris basically carried him through a match, I guess, is what happened. Chris was trying to rib him back by not allowing the match to be scripted. That’s what I was told by Chris.”