WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle has opened up about the reality of his final run with WWE, stating that he “looked like crap” and that the pain from his arthritic knees made it clear it was time to retire. He explained how the timing of his return and his role as Raw General Manager ultimately worked against him from a physical standpoint, leading to a disappointing in-ring comeback.
Speaking on “The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under” podcast, Angle reflected on his decision to retire at WrestleMania 35 in 2019. He admitted that watching his own performances at the time was a “brutal” experience. “When I watched myself wrestle in WWE my last year, I looked like an old man in the ring…I was like wow, this is brutal. I couldn’t even look at myself,” Angle said. “So I knew I had to have knee replacements. I had so much pain in my knees, arthritis and so much damage there.”
He explained that when he first returned to WWE in 2017 after an 11-year absence, he was “wrestling really good.” However, the company’s plan for him was to first be inducted into the Hall of Fame and then serve as the General Manager of Monday Night Raw, a non-wrestling role that he held for eight months. During that time, his physical condition deteriorated.
“Vince had a different idea… he makes me GM of Raw. And during this time, my knees are arthritic, and they’re getting tighter, and I’m less active. And for eight months I didn’t do anything,” Angle recounted. “Then all of a sudden he’s like, Kurt, I want you to wrestle. Uh, that’s gonna be a problem [laughs]. I literally, when I got in there, I looked like crap. I mean, I couldn’t do anything. It made me want to retire earlier than I wanted to. That’s why I retired with Baron Corbin at WrestleMania…because I didn’t want people to look at me and say, gosh, he used to be great, but now…I didn’t want that.”
When asked by The Undertaker how he is feeling today, Angle said that while his replaced knees are fine, he now deals with permanent issues stemming from his five neck surgeries. “The only thing that bothers me now is I have motor skill problems. My hands shake ‘cause my neck is so bad. And there’s nothing I can do about it. My neck naturally fused together… so I don’t have any more discs in between my vertebrae,” he explained. “I get pain going down my arms. My pinkies, I can’t feel either one of my pinkies. They’re gone. So, I just have a lot of functional problems… There’s just nothing. I have to deal with it.”
The Undertaker responded to his friend’s candid update by saying, “That’s the price we pay for the game we play.” The full interview with Kurt Angle, where he also discusses his TNA career and the current WWE and TNA partnership, can be heard on “The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under” podcast.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Six Feet Under with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
