Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com
On Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 3:33 PM EST

As reported yesterday, Kurt Angle is currently scheduled to take a hiatus from WWE very soon as he was overheard telling many wrestlers at recent TV and PPV tapings this past week that he would be doing so. Although it was initially believed to be related to nagging injuries for his time off, others have said that Angle wants to deal with some personal issues as well. So, the only thing known right now is that it is a mixture of both for his reason to take time off. This is certainly a big blow to the ECW brand as Angle has been its main focus for the last three weeks.

In something else we also noted yesterday, Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn made it very clear to everyone, including Paul Heyman, at the TV taping this past Tuesday for ECW on Sci Fi that he wasn't happy about the current direction of ECW and that it would become even more of a WWE style project with McMahon at the top of the creative department. So anyone expecting to watch an ECW product with heavy influence from Paul Heyman should probably stop watching now as it will now be presented heavily with Vince's own vision of the product. This decision was not a popular one backstage as the hope was that while ECW would be a third brand under WWE, it would also have the opportunity to be presented differently. That is no longer the case anymore.

According to reports, many wrestlers were said to have enjoyed the segment on ECW on Sci Fi this past Tuesday where WWE creative team member Christopher DeJoseph was caned by The Sandman. The feeling backstage among wrestlers was that this was a form of karma for DeJoseph having been part of the team that came up with the idea for The Sandman segments.

Source: Mike Johnson @ PWInsider.com