Kurt Angle is widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in WWE history. Many fans all over the world have fond memories of him as a wrestler and as a character. He’s said to be one of wrestling’s quickest learners and was highly adaptable to different situations. And it was one of these non-wrestling situations that got Kurt Angle in trouble with the boss.
Kurt Angle fined $14,000 by Vince McMahon for laughing
Kurt Angle made an appearance for ITR and was asked questions by Kenny McIntosh on some of his career’s best moments. As the conversation shifted towards Angle’s feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Angle put over Austin for his skills as a “ring general”.
Then the conversation shifted away from the ring and towards their many backstage interactions. It was here where Kurt Angle couldn’t help himself but laugh continuously, ,much to Vince McMahon’s frustration.
“We were doing the pre-tapes and Vince would say, ‘listen, I know this is kinda crazy, and everyone’s gonna be laughing, but please, do not laugh until the pre-tape’s over.’ So we would do these pre-tapes and he [Vince] is like, ‘we don’t have all night to do this because we have to get this to the truck before the show starts’. So the pre-tapes happen before the show. So everything you see backstage during the show happens earlier in the day.
So Vince wanted to get them out of the way, not do them live during the show. So Steve and I were doing these comedy skits, and they were so f***ing funny. And after three pre-tapes, I kept laughing. And Vince is like, ‘OK, OK, the next person that f***in laughs, you’re getting fined $2,000.’
I said, ‘well does that count if I do it multiple times?’ he said yes. ‘Every time you laugh, it’s $2,000.’ Well I ended up that night, I spent $14,000. Vince fined me 14 grand, Holy s**t.”
Kurt Angle was also asked how he felt about Austin’s ‘WHAT’ chants that took off around the same time. He admitted that he hated them because they would frazzle him and make him struggle to remember his lines for his promos.
That said, Angle explained that Austin went on to “make $15million off one word” with the success of that single chant.