On his podcast in 2023, Kurt Angle shared his views about his Survivor Series 1999 debut opponent Shawn Stasiak, the son of Old School WWWF Legend Stan ‘The Man’ Stasiak. Angle explained what hurt Stasiak’s push in the WWF:
“Shawn (Stasiak), very talented. He was one of the most talented wrestlers in that camp. He had all the tools, man. He had the look, the promo, and the wrestling. Sadly, he didn’t have the confidence. That really crushed him. If he had more confidence, he’d have been a huge star in WWE. We had a really good match. Vince McMahon kinda chimed in and asked me to cut a promo halfway through the match, which scared the sh*t out of me. I hate to say this, but I have to let the cat out of the bag. Shawn was losing his hair, just as I was. He decided to get a hair replacement and it was a week before he was called up for his first WWF stint in 1998. He called WWF and says ‘I can’t get called up now. I’m getting my hair done’. That was part of the reason why Shawn was painted in the corner, as someone who was not a team player. WWE was like ‘We want you to debut right now’. And he made them wait for like two months. I wonder if that incident affected his career a little bit.”
Shawn Stasiak reached out to us to respond to Angle’s claims. You can read what he exclusively sent us below:
On Kurt Angle’s claims:
“This recent article about what Kurt Angle quoted/spoke about last year about me in an episode on his podcast is complete and utter bullsh*t. It’s so fabricated I don’t know where to start. I have no idea where Kurt came up with that story/narrative. I think he’s punch drunk and just couldn’t believe what a fool he sounded like spewing that nonsense out of his mouth. Not sure if it’s concussions or lingering residuals from his pain pill abuse. Regardless, it was disappointing to hear and see when I watched it as I’ve always loved and respected Kurt over the years.
So just to put this in context. That entire story last year that came out of Kurt’s podcast was confusing to me as one minute he’s putting me over, giving me compliments and praise but soon after does a heel turn the next minute where he’s basically putting me down saying I had absolutely no confidence and that I had turned down and or told the WWE office/brass that I couldn’t make the call up to the main roster because I was getting a hair restoration procedure done.
And then that geeky dorky co-host of his just adding to it with his facetious smarta$$ demeanor towards the whole thing was just flat out distorted and disappointing as I’ve always respected Kurt for all of his accomplishments. We basically came up together, trained together at the Funking dojo camps in Stamford, had plenty of dark matches, traveled and was paired up for his very first official WWE debut match at the Survivor Series PPV in 1999.
Of course, coming from an amateur wrestling background of my own, I truly appreciate and respected and felt an instant gravitation/connection to Kurt from the very beginning. And in any interview or podcast that I’d catch him doing over the years and my name came up, he always seemed to speak of me in a respectful positive light. But for some reason or another, this last round he got it wrong. I don’t know if it’s just some fabricated story he made up, I’d hope not but who knows perhaps a fabricated story he heard from some other jacka$$ and just believed or bought into it and that’s what now gets regurgitated. Thinking to myself perhaps his memory bank is warped, is it years of concussions, pain pill abuse residual effects that cloud memory? I don’t know. Regardless, was just disappointed and a bit taken back by it all.”
On the tape recorder incident getting him fired from the WWF:
“It’s absolutely AMAZING how a lot of these stories within the pro wrestling bubble get so…
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