Kurt Angle would be honored to induct John Cena into WWE Hall of Fame

When John Cena joins the WWE Hall of Fame one day, Kurt Angle would be honored to induct him.

Angle was the guest on a new episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet uploaded on Tuesday. The subject of Cena’s impending retirement came up during their conversation, and Van Vliet asked Angle about potentially inducting Cena into the WWE Hall of Fame. Angle said he would be honored to do it, but there are a lot of people who would be good choices.

“Well, I’ll tell you this, there are a lot of people that deserve to induct John,” Angle said. “Randy Orton, who was his biggest — I guess competition, or his nemesis. But Stephanie McMahon, don’t forget that she’s the one that discovered his rapping ability, and she was a big fan of his. She really supported him quite often. But, no, I’d be honored to induct John Cena. The one thing I want to say about him is he has shown that he is possibly the greatest WWE Superstar of all time. Winning 16 World Heavyweight titles in one company — Ric Flair won 16, but he won them in NWA and WCW and WWE, and you can’t take that away from him, they were all major promotions. But to do it all in one company, that makes you that company’s greatest star. And I really believe that he deserves another title before he retires.”

Cena is on a retirement tour that will conclude with him having his final match in December 2025. A WWE Hall of Fame induction is inevitable at some point, but it isn’t known when Cena will be going in. Angle was the headliner of the 2017 Hall of Fame class with Cena inducting him. The two have been linked together ever since Angle was the opponent for Cena’s first-ever televised WWE match in 2002.

While Angle would love to be the opponent for Cena’s retirement match, that will not be happening. Angle admits that he can’t wrestle anymore, and he recently hurt his back just bumping in the ring for an NFL commercial.

“No, I can’t wrestle anymore. Actually, you know what I did? I did wrestle about two months ago. I did a commercial for CBS,” Angle said. “And it was for the NFL pre-game for the [Baltimore] Ravens and [Pittsburgh] Steelers. So me and a gentleman named Kyle Brandt, he’s a sportscaster for CBS, he pretended he was the Ravens and I pretended I was the Steelers. We had a pro wrestling match and I was bumping.

“No, no, no [there’s no chance of Angle wrestling again]. Because what happened was, I threw my back out. And I couldn’t walk for a week after that. My wife was like, you’re never getting in that ring again. And she’s right. I shouldn’t have even got in the ring, but it was a lot of fun to do it. But I would love to wrestle John Cena. There’s nobody that wants to wrestle John more than I do for his retirement match, especially with the respect I have for him. I just can’t do it.”

A match between the two is not possible, but Angle would be open to appearing for a segment during Cena’s retirement tour.

“Yeah, that could be possible,” he told Van Vliet. “If they need me to do something like that, you know, that’s cool.”

The full podcast episode is available below: