With such a successful career in professional wrestling, working for both WWE and TNA, it is clear that Kurt Angle made good money during his twenty years at the top.
Recently, Angle has put a rough number on how income he received for merchandising alone, and it’s undoubtedly substantial.
Legendary WWE Hall of Famer Reveals They Made $900,000 From Merchandise Sales
In a recent episode of The Kurt Angle Show, one of Kurt Angle‘s fans asked him about his favourite piece of merchandise while in WWE. Angle was open and honest in his answer, perhaps giving the fan more details than expected.
“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.”
“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.'”
Kurt Angle then spoke about fellow all-time great “Stone Cold” Steve Austin‘s success in the merchandise department.
“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.”
During the same Q&A Session on The Kurt Angle Show, Angle spoke about his favourite match of all time.
H/T Fightful