Kurt Angle Taught A Lesson By Vince McMahon After Quitting WWE
Kurt Angle might be a WWE Hall of Famer but he believes Vince McMahon wanted to teach him a lesson when he returned to the company in 2017.
Kurt Angle had a meteoric rise in WWE winning several titles including the WWE Championship in his rookie year with the company. Angle held his own in a main event scene crowded with the likes of Triple H, The Undertaker, Steve Austin, The Rock, Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar, and Shawn Michaels but by 2006, amid serious concerns over his health, the star left the company.
Angle continued his career in TNA where he spent the next decade battling the likes of Samoa Joe, Sting, AJ Styles, and Bobby Roode.
Kurt Angle returned to WWE in 2017 when he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame before eventually returning to the ring. Angle’s final match came at WrestleMania 35 but it was not exactly the bout or the opponent Angle had hoped for.
Speaking on NotSam, Kurt Angle explained that he wanted his final match in WWE to be against John Cena but Vince McMahon turned that down as he wanted Angle to complete his program with Baron Corbin:
I’m sure if I made a call I could make it happen, but there’s no way I can do it [physically], unfortunately. But I would have loved to be one of John Cena’s retirement matches. I’m the one that had his first match, and I wanted John to be my retirement match.
I don’t know if you knew that, but I requested that to Vince. He said, You’re gonna have to wait till next year because you have a program with Baron Corbin. So I was like, okay, but I don’t think I can go another year Vince. He said, well then, it is what it is.
Kurt Angle Wasn’t Appreciated By WWE
Angle continued by noting that he didn’t feel he was appreciated during his second run in the company because of his success in TNA. Kurt Angle spent a decade in TNA but revealed that when he left WWE in 2006, he was meant to return to the company just six months later:
I love Baron Corbin, but I just felt that my second time in WWE I wasn’t so much appreciated. I think it has a lot to do with me leaving the company high and dry in 2006 and going straight to TNA. I was supposed to go back to WWE in six months. Vince wanted me to take six months off and come back.
So literally, when I left his office and I quit, I called [TNA] and got a contract that day. I didn’t wait a second. I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go and I think they were like, ‘Okay, well if he comes back we’re going to teach him a little lesson,’ which is fine. I understood.