WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle recently spoke on his podcast, “Kurt Angle Show,” about a variety of professional wrestling topics including his favorite piece of Kurt Angle merchandise:
“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 Its True. It was a great T-shirt. I sold a lot of those. 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 Olympics. We can’t use Olympic rings. You’re not going to 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.’ I had merchandise, but I didn’t have a lot.”
Angle discussing the amount of money Steve Austin made from merchandise:
“In one year, he made $12 million on merchandise and 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 McMahon said, ‘I pay you (Angle) 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 back end with wrestling. Merchandise, I made, I’ll give you just roundabout figures, between 700 and 900 grand a year. It 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 in merchandise, so just wrestle.’ I would come up with merchandise ideas and Vince would utilize them, but you know, I didn’t sell like Stone Cold, and I was a heel most of my career too.”
On how much merchandise money Angle made in TNA:
“I did alright in TNA. Believe it or not, yeah, 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”
On how much he made in his best years in TNA from merchandise:
“In TNA, 400 grand.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
