Kurt Angle thinks his TNA career doesn’t get ‘enough accolades’

Though he’s widely regarded as one of the best professional wrestlers to ever live, Kurt Angle believes a portion of his career goes under-appreciated.

While speaking with WrestleZone, Angle was asked if there’s something from his career that he feels deserves to be talked about more. Angle pointed to his time in TNA Wrestling from 2006-2016, saying he feels his TNA run was better than the work he did in WWE.

“I always get, ‘You know, Kurt Angle would have been the best of all time if he would have stuck in the WWE and wrestled there for 20 years.’ That may be true, but what’s the difference? I wrestled in TNA for 11 of my 20 years, and I think that should be added on. I had a better career in TNA. I was wrestling guys like AJ Styles and Samoa Joe and Sting. And I had a lot better career in TNA because I came into my own. You know, when you’re a professional wrestler it takes you about six, seven years to really master your craft. And that’s when I left WWE, after six years. And I went to TNA and I was a man on a mission there. And I just did incredibly well there,” Angle said.

“I don’t get enough accolades for it, you know? I mean, I know that a lot of people consider me one of the best of all times now regardless of my TNA career. But that career gets a little bit stifled. That really bothers me a little bit because, you know, I was really that good. I mean, I had an incredible career. Don’t get me wrong, the WWE career was great too. Now me coming back to the WWE in 2017, I don’t even count that. Because by then I lost a step, I wasn’t the same person. The reason why I retired early is because I looked at myself on television and I was like, ‘Wow, this looks like an old man wrestling.’ And I didn’t like what I saw.”

Angle left WWE for TNA in 2006 amid a battle with addiction and health issues. He returned to WWE in 2017 as a wrestler and authority figure along with being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

In TNA, Angle was a six-time World Champion and helped the promotion do some of the best pay-per-view numbers in its history. He joined the TNA Hall of Fame in 2013.