Vince McMahon Told Kurt Angle He Wasn't Allowed To Have Merchandise

During a recent Q&A on his podcast, Kurt Angle was asked what his favorite piece of merchandise from his career has been.

"You know what, I love the 'You Suck' mug [laughs]. I thought it was hilarious. Giving somebody a gift that says 'You Suck' on a mug so they can drink coffee every morning, that's awesome. But my favorite was what I sold the most. It was my 'It's True, It's True' t-shirt. Red, white and blue, 'It's True, It's True,' and it was a great t-shirt. I sold a lot of those and that was my rookie year. I never sold as many t-shirts the rest of my career as I did my first year."

Angle continued.

"I have to tell you this, it wasn't that much money. I wasn't a merchandise guy,. Even Vince McMahon came to me and said, 'Listen, we can't use the word Olympic. We can't use the Olympic rings. You're not gonna do merchandise. I'm gonna pay you to wrestle.' I was like, 'Well I do want to make money on merchandise.' He says, 'Can't do it.'"

On how Angle's merch sales compared to Stone Cold Steve Austin.

"Listen, in one year, he made $12 million on merchandise. That was the 3:16 shirt. That's when it came out. $12 million. He told me. I was like, 'Holy crap.' He only made two and a half million wrestling. Vince said, 'I pay you to wrestle.' Vince, I'm not gonna lie to you, he paid me well. I made more than Austin did with wrestling. I didn't make nearly as much as Austin did with merchandise. But Vince took care of me on the backend with wrestling. Merchandise, I made, I'll give you just round about figures, between 700 and 900 grand a year. Wasn't a lot. It's a lot of money, don't get me wrong, but not for being a big star like that. For some reason Vince just told me, 'Hey, can't do anything with you with merchandise. So just wrestle.' I would come up with merchandise ideas and Vince would utilize them, but I didn't sell like Stone Cold, and I was a heel most of my career, too."

On his TNA run:

"You know what, I did alright with TNA. Believe it or not, we we were selling pretty well the first few years. I mean, I would say between 2007 and 2010, everybody's making pretty good money on merch."