NEWS: Daniel Puder Speaks on Kurt Angle & Bullying in the WWE

NEWS: Former Tough Enough winner Daniel Puder recently sat down with the Pancakes and Powerslams podcast and shed some light on his role in the shoot against Kurt Angle, as well as Big Show & Bill Demott's apparent penchant for bullying new incoming talent. Puder stated the following:

On being bullied by Big Show:

“He slammed me into a locker plenty of times. I didn’t know it was coming. It was the first time when we walked into the guy’s locker room. They set it up for the guys to be in there. Big Show looked at me and he says, ‘You bowing up? You bowing up, boy?’ And I was like, you know, I stand with good posture. He comes over and just launches me over to a locker, and takes my head and tosses me out the room.”

On Bill Demott's penchant for bullying him:

“One day I did a move wrong and stood up. He came over and grabbed my pinky and bent it backwards. I go, ‘Well. Are you gonna break it, or are you gonna actually let me do this move right and teach me right?'” While he did admit that he was an awesome coach, he further stated that he did have some bullying incidents. “He once said, if you don’t come out to drink with us, I’m gonna kick your a–.”

On Bob Holly and reading what was later written by him in Holly’s book:

“I would show up, and he would bump me all over the place; and I would continue taking it. And he has the audacity to write negatively in his book. I really looked up to the guy, and I [looked at what we wrote about me]. At the end of the day, he’s gonna go out of this world, when he dies, for being a loser and an idiot. You try to write a book to put people down for the money, it’s pretty sad; pretty low.”

On the shoot incident with Kurt Angle:

“After I kicked his butt, he could have done at lot with it. He could have said “you caught me”, he could have made a feud out of it. He could have taken me under his wing and said, “Hey kid. I’m gonna make you the best wrestler in the world. But, instead, they got nervous and didn’t want to play.”
When asked what Kurt Angle said to him after the impromptu pin from the referee, Puder stated, “I remember him saying that you can’t use submissions. [Angle said], ‘You can’t do that! You can’t do submissions in here!’ I was thinking to myself, when I walked in, the ref said anything goes, but no striking.”

On whether or not the incident with Angle was planned ahead of time:

“We didn’t know. When they were having us run sprints in the back, and feeding us pasta and milk, we didn’t even know that they were going to have us go to the ring afterwards.”