Kurt Angle Is Surprised Joe Hendry Hasn’t Been Pushed Further at This Point in His Career

During a recent episode of The Kurt Angle Show, the WWE Hall of Famer spoke about a wide range of topics, including the rise of TNA star Joe Hendry. Here are the highlights:

On Joe Hendry: “I believe in Joe Hendry, yes I do. I got to wrestle Joe over in the UK… and he’s good. And not only that, he had this character where he would sing songs about his opponent. And he did one about me and I was like, ‘Holy s**t! This guy needs to be a WWE.’ I mean, he was the Elias times 100,000. He was able to tell stories about his opponents every single week. And he would come up with these songs, and he would play the guitar, and it was just really impressive. Not only that, but he was also a great worker in the ring. So I knew this kid was gonna be something special. I’m actually surprised that he hasn’t been pushed even further at this point in his career. Yeah, he deserves that man [his push].”

On the TNA-WWE relationship: “I’m glad they’re doing it. You know, it’s just — for a long time, they considered TNA competition. And I don’t know if it was ever a competition. The Monday Night Wars was real competition, WCW versus WWF. But you know, TNA when I was there, we weren’t getting near the ratings WWE was, but we were doing pretty well. I mean, we were getting 2 million viewers a week and it was pretty impressive for a small company. But we were never competing with WWE.

“But it’s kind of cool that they realize that now and you know, they want to reach out and mix with other companies and with a company like TNA, and I think that’s really cool. I think perhaps Mickie James might have started that, I know that she came out at the Royal Rumble with the TNA World [Knockouts] Title. So you know, she is the frontier of that collaboration… It’s crazy. I never thought an NXT wrestler would end up on TNA but you know what, I love it. I think it’s great. And I think it’s gonna help both companies regardless.”

On why they changed Tamyra Mensah-Stock to Tyra Mae Steele: “I don’t have any idea why they want to do that. She has a name, she has a great reputation in amateur wrestling. And for them to change her name, it just didn’t make any sense. Other than the fact that they want to own the name that she was named in WWE. They keep rights to that name. She can use her real name. But the thing is, you want to use your real name because it makes you more marketable. For her to change her name — and I’m not sure why they did that. I imagine it is because they wanted rights to her new name.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit One True Sport with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.