WWE Legend Regrets Extending In-Ring Career
A WWE Hall of Famer wishes things could have been different.
Since retiring at WrestleMania 35 in 2019 with a match against Baron Corbin, Kurt Angle has made no secret of the fact it’s not exactly how he wanted to go out.
The WWE Hall of Famer has openly admitted he wanted a retirement match with John Cena after wrestling regularly when he returned to the company two years earlier. But, that inactivity while Raw General Manager played into his physical decline and eventual retirement.
After initially signing with WWE in 1998, Angle quickly established himself as one of the best wrestlers in the world. However, his physical style and major injury problems led to a serious addiction to pain medication and in August 2006 he left the company.
Just three months later, Angle signed with TNA Wrestling and continued to perform at a high level despite his problems with addiction and injury. In 2024, Kurt Angle said this period of his career deserves more credit, describing himself as a “man on a mission.”
Kurt Angle Wanted To End Career With WWE In 2009
During a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Angle discussed the end of his career and his frustration with how his second WWE run played out. But this time he began with something of a bombshell, revealing he wished he’d have returned to WWE and retired in 2009.
“You know what I wish I would have? I think I wish I would have finished my career in WWE, 10 years shorter. WWE and TNA. So, in other words, instead of 20 years, I think 10 would have been enough, and I think I would have been okay, but I pushed myself further and, you know, got into my 40s and kept working at a high pace.
The reason why I retired is because I was losing a step, and I could see it when I watched me on film. I didn’t like what I saw, and I didn’t want the fans to remember me as a broken-down Kurt Angle. I wanted them to remember me when I was in my prime, and that occurred when I went back to the WWE for the second time, and that was in 2017.
When I came back, I ended up they wanted to induct me into Hall of Fame. And I was like, Vince, I’m not done wrestling. He’s like, ‘Well, we’ll get to the wrestling.’ And then he said that that night after the Hall of Fame, he said, ‘I want you to be a general manager of Raw.’ I was like, ‘Vince, I want to wrestle.’ He said, ‘It’s coming.’ So he made me the general manager of Raw for nine months, and during those nine months, I was inactive.
I never got in the ring. I was so busy doing general manager stuff I couldn’t get in the ring. And by the time they had me wrestle, I looked like an old man.
Taking those nine months off, especially at my age, close to 50. I shut down. My body shut down, and my knees were bent full time like I couldn’t [straighten] my knees out. I had to have knee replacements. Now, my knee is straight. I had a rough time in that ring.”
When asked whether he had a chance to return to WWE in 2009, Angle said he was happy in TNA and enjoyed the extra creative freedom he was given.
In a different interview back in November, Kurt Angle claimed WWE didn’t do enough with Baron Corbin and said he was disappointed to see his former rival get released. The veteran said he was under the impression the company would push Corbin much more after their match at WrestleMania, but that sustained support never came.
H/t to WrestlingNews.Co