On the latest “Kurt Angle Show” podcast, Kurt revealed that he will be undergoing neck surgery at the beginning of next year. Angle has dealt with a number of injuries for decades. His most serious neck issues stemmed from his broken neck in the Olympics and his issues from taking bumps in the ring while in WWE and TNA Wrestling.
“I have a lot of motor skill problems, but just so you know, I’m having neck surgery at the beginning of next year,” Angle said. “They’re gonna put in artificial disc replacements and it’s going to help these right here (his hands). I can’t really grab things and things always slip out of my hands and fall. I have horrible motor skills. They said my arms, because they atrophied three inches each and I don’t have any muscle in here, this is completely flat (between his thumb and finger) There’s supposed to be muscle in there but it deteriorated. It atrophied. When I get these rubber discs or disc replacements, they’re going to open up the nerves so they can go down my arm so I have better circulation. The recovery time is two weeks.”
Kurt also talked about how he initially turned down a multi-year contract with WWE in 1996. Kurt has discussed before how he was not familiar with pro wrestling and his feeling was the he was a real wrestler in the Olympics and pro wrestling was beneath him. After being invited to an ECW show, Kurt eventually signed with WWE for less money with the idea that he would make more if he could prove himself to Vince McMahon.
“They offered me half a million for 10 years and I turned it down,” Angle said. “So when I tried out for them a couple years later, they said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna give you a contract. It’s not going to be very good. We’re gonna give you a $75,000 contract to start out.’ I said, ‘Okay, how do I make more money than that?’ They said, ‘Well, if you climb the ranks and you end up in the main event, you’ll get more’, so my first year I made 500 grand, probably my first four months in the business. After the first month, I got catapulted into the main event. I was main-eventing all the time. So I made like $1.4 million in my first year wrestling. I was only guaranteed $75,000. My biggest year was $3.2 million. That would have been my third year with Stone Cold Steve Austin beginning with him when I beat up for the world title.”
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