Kurt Angle feels he ‘wasn’t so much appreciated’ by WWE during second run with company

Kurt Angle feels he “wasn’t so much appreciated” by WWE during his second run with the company.

After leaving WWE for TNA Wrestling in 2006 amid a battle with addiction, Angle went more than a decade without competing in a WWE ring. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017 and returned to the promotion as an authority figure and wrestler.

Angle’s in-ring career ended when he lost to Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35 in 2019. While appearing on a new episode of Notsam Wrestling, Angle explained that he wanted John Cena to be the opponent for his retirement match, but Vince McMahon told him he would have to wait another year for that to happen. Angle feels that — because of the way he left the first time — WWE was trying to teach him a lesson when he came back.

“I wanted John [Cena] to be my retirement match, I don’t know if you knew that, but I requested that to Vince,” Angle told Sam Roberts. “He said, ‘You’re going to have to wait until next year because you have a program with Baron Corbin.’ So I was like, ‘Ok, but I don’t think I can go another year, Vince.’ He said, ‘Well, then, it is what it is.’

“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. See, 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, ‘Ok, well, if he comes back, we’re going to teach him a little lesson.’ You know? [laughs] Which is fine, I understood.”

Angle said he loved his TNA run and feels like he was doing the best in-ring wrestling of his career there with matches against opponents like AJ Styles and Samoa Joe.

Now 55 years old, Angle has no plans to return to active competition. He told Notsam Wrestling that — as much as he would love to face Cena during Cena’s retirement tour — it’s not something that he could physically do.

“Listen, I’m sure if I made a call I could make it happen, but there’s no way I can [physically] do it,” Angle said. “Unfortunately. But I would have loved to be one of John Cena’s retirement matches. I mean, I’m the one that had his first match.”

An Olympic gold medalist, Angle is currently an ambassador for USA Wrestling and remains associated with WWE.