WWE.com Kurt Angle has a mysterious conversation with Corey Graves on 'Raw.'
Over the past few weeks, the WWE has been developing a storyline on Monday Night Raw involving Kurt Angle and a mysterious scandal, and this is all building up to some sort of a reveal on the July 17th episode. The show has been giving us breadcrumbs going back to May, so ahead of next week’s big reveal, here’s a look back at everything we know.
The Kurt Angle storyline started on the May 29th episode of Monday Night Raw. There was a weird moment on that episode in which Corey Graves becomes distracted on commentary by his phone, getting up and walking away. Later, Kurt Angle is seen backstage looking at Corey Graves’ phone. Angle reads something on Graves’ phone which says that Angle is a “disgrace and an embarrassment to the WWE.” It also says he has “besmirched my status as an Olympic gold medalist.” Angle asks Graves if this is a joke, but Graves says that it’s not. Graves also says that he’s on Angle’s side and hopes that nothing throws a wrench into the job he’s doing as general manager. When Angle asks how Graves got this message, Graves says, “Look, I don’t know what it is about me, but people tell me things. And I just wanted to give you a heads up about the information that I have…” Finally, Angle says, “If this is true, it could ruin me.”
The WWE later promoted this segment on its Twitter page by saying that Corey Graves “seems to have found some scandalous information” about Kurt Angle. This was all we found out on the May 29th episode.
A week later, on the June 5th episode of Raw, Kurt Angle was seen backstage looking at his phone and saying “This is driving me nuts.” Later, Kurt Angle interrupted the commentary team to ask Corey Graves to speak with him. The two then have a private conversation that is not broadcast, but we can see that Angle is pointing to his phone the whole time. Corey Graves soon returns to the commentary desk, and when he’s asked what’s going on, he won’t give an answer. Kurt Angle is subsequently asked what the conversation was about, and he just says, “It’s a private matter.” He then leaves the building while looking at his phone. After that, that was it for Kurt Angle for the night.
On the June 12th episode of Raw, The Miz says that Kurt Angle was too preoccupied with his personal problems to do his job. He was referring to the fact that while Angle was distracted the previous week, Dean Ambrose snuck back into the arena that he had been asked to leave; in fact, it was right after Kurt Angle left while staring at his phone that Dean Ambrose slipped in. As soon as The Miz brings this up, Angle says, “What do you know about my personal problems?” That was about it for that week.
The following week’s episode took place one day after Father’s Day. In a backstage segment, Corey Graves approaches Kurt Angle and tells him, “It’s too bad you didn’t have a good Father’s Day. I know why: I got the same text that you did.” Graves is about to give Kurt Angle advice about what they should do when Enzo Amore and Big Cass enter, and we never hear Graves’ advice. Later that night, Corey Graves is the one who figures out the identity of Enzo Amore’s attacker, when Kurt Angle was supposed to have figured that out.
On June 26th, Big Cass interrupts the commentary team, telling Corey Graves that he wants to snap his neck after Graves revealed that Cass attacked Enzo Amore. However, Cass says that Kurt Angle told him not to touch Graves. From this, Cass concludes that Graves must have some “serious dirt” on Kurt Angle.
Nothing really happened on the July 3rd episode of Raw, although Angle at one point was seen staring at his phone concerned.
Finally, it was on the July 10th episode of Raw that we got the biggest developments yet. In a backstage segment, Kurt Angle talked with Corey Graves. Angle asked Graves, “You got the same text I got, right?” Graves says that he did. When Graves asks Angle what he’s going to do about this, he says, “I don’t know. I can’t let this get out. Then again, I might have to go public with this. Oh god, I’m going to lose my family over this. I hope they support me. My career could be destroyed.” Angle then says that next week, he’s going to go public with the secret, noting that he “could be saying goodbye at the same time.” Graves says he doesn’t think Angle will have to say goodbye because he’s beloved by so many people.
Then, at the end of the show, Kurt Angle was seen on the phone with someone, saying to them, “I totally understand. Whoa, whoa, stop thinking that way. Why don’t you come here next week and we’ll both do it together. Neither one of us has anything to be ashamed of. I’m proud of you. And I hope you feel the same way about me. Yeah. So why don’t you come here next week and we’ll tell the whole world together? And whatever happens, happens. I love you.”
To summarize, then, this all started when Corey Graves got tipped off to the fact that there is some scandalous secret out there about Kurt Angle, which some unidentified person was very upset about and said made Angle an embarrassment to the WWE. Angle and Graves talked cryptically about this for the next few weeks, with both of them continuing to get texts of concern. This led up to something happening on July 10th that convinced Angle that he has to go public with the secret.
It has been rumored that this is leading up to the return of Stephanie McMahon and a match between Kurt Angle and Triple H at SummerSlam. Some theorize that it will revealed that Kurt Angle had an affair with Stephanie McMahon and/or that he has an illegitimate child, which may have been foreshadowed when Corey Graves suggested that Kurt Angle did not have a good Father’s Day.
We’ll see the conclusion to this Kurt Angle mystery next week on Raw.