Kurt Angle Blasts WWE for Stealing Ideas from TNA

Over at his official Twitter account earlier today, current TNA star and Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle blasted WWE for stealing creative ideas from his employer, noting various similarities between the two wrestling products.

Angle, a former WWE wrestler who parted ways with the company in August 2006, first of all accused WWE of ripping off TNA with the current John Cena/AJ scandal storyline, which sees Vickie Guerrero accuse the duo of carrying on a secret affair:

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Staged "affair" between AJ Lee & @JohnCena, w/date pic & hotel video? WWE outright lifting TNA concepts?

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Angle is almost certainly referring to TNA's infamous AJ Styles/Dixie Carter/Claire Lynch storyline from earlier this year, which saw the heels—Daniels and Kazarian—insist on television that Styles and the TNA President were carrying on an extra-marital relationship.

The dastardly duo frequently showed paparazzi-style shots of the two alone in hotels together, similar to ones Vickie showed on last night's Raw. Styles and Carter swore blind nothing was going on between them. 

This all led to the revelation that the pair were not having a relationship and were actually working together in secret to help mutual friend Claire Lynch, a pregnant woman with substance abuse issues.

Sounds crazy, right?

Well, things didn't get much better from there: Claire then alleged to a shell-shocked Styles that he was the father of her child. It was eventually revealed that she was just some actress in cahoots with Daniels and Kazarian, who were desperate to muddy Styles' name in any way they could.

It was a truly horrible angle with terrible acting (particularly from Lynch), ridiculously melodramatic promos and Grand Canyon-sized plot holes. The whole thing may go down as the worst storyline in TNA history, which is really saying something considering some of the stuff America's No. 2 promotion has churned out in recent years.

Obviously, we can't know for sure whether there is any truth to Angle's allegation that AJ/Cena was inspired by the Lynch saga , but it's highly questionable why WWE would want to even rip off such an atrocious idea.    

Interestingly, TNA referee Brian Hebner also noted the comparison on Twitter: "Apparently some people think they can do it better?? Have at it!! It was pretty stupid the first time, so always worth another shot!!" #123."

During his rant, Angle also criticised WWE for directly lifting production techniques and ideas from TNA during the heel group Three Man Band's Behind the Music style skit on Raw. This assertion is also dubious. While the segment in question did look noticeably different from a lot of WWE's output, it's hardly like TNA has a patent on multi-camera techniques and close-up shots.