By Chad Smart
@ChadSmart on Twitter
I’m a few days late on this
which is fine because it’s given Kurt Angle time to make idiotic claims trying
to defend himself. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past week,
Kurt Angle was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Kurt has said the Breathalyzer test showed his blood alcohol level was .06
which puts him in the legally acceptable range for drinking and driving. The arresting officer claims Kurt blew
a .09 and failed several sobriety tests. Call me crazy but I’m more inclined to
believe an officer I’ve never heard of over Kurt Angle who has made several
borderline crazy comments in interviews over the past few years.
This is Kurt’s second DUI
“allegation” this year and comes just a couple weeks after Matt Hardy was fired
from TNA for a similar offense. To date the only statement TNA has made
regarding Kurt Angle is announcing what upcoming house shows he will be
appearing. While TNA isn’t a
public company like WWE so they don’t have shareholders to answer to, their
lack of comment on the situation says a lot.
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| Kevin, Kurt, and Chad |
Currently, Kurt is the TNA
World Champion and is set to defend the title at the No Surrender pay per view this
Sunday, September 11 against Sting and Mr. Anderson. Normally after a situation
like the arrest, fans could expect the champion to lose the title as a form of
punishment. However with TNA’s biggest show of the year being next month featuring
a title match they’ve actually been building to for the past five months, I
don’t know if I see them switching the title to someone else simply for the
sake of punishing Kurt. Plus, Sting just lost the title to Kurt last month and
Mr. Anderson has gone face to heel to face in the last six weeks so putting the
title on him wouldn’t make much sense. Then again, this is TNA and logic has
never been a strong point.
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| Matt Hardy at TNA BaseBrawl |
As I started to compare a
couple paragraphs ago, given TNA recently fired a top name wrestler using same
legal problem as the reasoning, if they do nothing concerning Kurt, it will
send a very clear message there are double standards for TNA talent. Allegedly, Matt Hardy had some backstage
issues working against him while Kurt has been a company man since signing with
TNA 5 years ago and that’s the reason why nothing has been publicly said or
done by TNA so far. That may be true, but TNA should realize drinking and
driving is a serious issue. I’ll admit I have a strong intolerance to drinking
and driving due to knowing three people who have been killed by drunk drivers,
so my feelings towards Kurt and Matt’s stupidity is probably a little harsher
than most other people. Given this is Kurt’s second offense this year, what
will need to happen before TNA management steps in and tries to get Kurt to
understand his careless decision could have potentially fatal consequences?
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| From Impact Wrestling |
With Jeff Hardy making his
return, I feel TNA is sitting on a potential powder keg for bad publicity. TNA
needs to step in, set up a wellness program similar to WWE and realize even
drinking and driving is nothing to take lightly. Will it take a death or
serious injury before TNA starts to put personal health above potential
profits?
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