Bruce Prichard on Kurt Angle Debuting as a Heel at Survivor Series 1999, Why Shawn Stasiak Was Angle’s Opponent

– On the latest Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard discussed Kurt Angle making his WWE in-ring debut at Survivor Series 1999 against Shawn Stasiak. You can check out the announcement below.

Bruce Prichard on the fans booing Kurt Angle right away: “Well, they were meant to boo him. That was music to our ears. Kurt had done the vignettes talking about the Three I’s, ‘Intensity, integrity, and whatever the f*** else it was.’ That’s the funny thing. People — that there were some people that though, ‘Oh my god. He’s an Olympic gold medalist. He can only be a babyface.’ When you watch those vignettes, if you don’t see a heel, then I don’t know what the hell you were seeing. Kurt was meant to be a heel from Day 1 with those vignettes, and it worked. The idea was Kurt could go out there, dazzle them with his wrestling, but to kind of Dory Funk him. You know what I mean? Go on out and have a match that is good, but it’s not Stone Cold Steve Austin whooping everybody’s ***. And yeah, they booed the s*** out of it, and they booed it for a couple of reasons because he was good and he told them he was good and went out and did his job.”

Bruce Prichard on how it was a great debut: “We were very pleased with it. I thought it was a great debut for Kurt and set the stage for what was to come. And it actually came faster than we thought. We thought, ‘Well, you know what? I think there are still people — like you said — who will be surprised that he was booed.’ I think there were people that were surprised he was booed. He’s an Olympic gold medalist. What the f*** are you doing here? He’s Kurt Angle! You can’t boo him! But that’s what we wanted, and they did. And thank god.”

Prichard on why Shawn Stasiak was picked as Angle’s opponent: “The reason Shawn was picked for this match is because Shawn had been in training with Kurt at the time. So, other than we wanted Kurt to be comfortable — other than using my brother, who was the one who had gone around all of the live events that Kurt was going in and the C-towns and different places. Kurt had worked with Tom [Prichard] everywhere. Kurt had been working a while with other guys, but what we wanted to make sure that Kurt would have a level of comfort. And there was a level of comfort with Shawn because they had started training together, and that’s why Shawn was picked.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something to Wrestle with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.