Kurt Angle Reveals The One Reason He Almost Never Signed With WWE

After over a decade away from WWE, Kurt Angle has finally returned home where he belongs. The former Olympic Gold Medal winner was brought back back in April as he was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame just prior to WrestleMania 33. Soon after, Vince McMahon officially announced angle as the new General Manager of Monday Night RAW, bringing Angle back to weekly WWE programming once again.

Recently, a WWE Network special entitled WWE 24 – Kurt Angle: Homecoming revealed some of the backstory behind the former WWE Champion and Vince McMahon’s relationship, and how Angle’s entrance into the world of professional wrestling came about. Per Angle, just after his Olympic Gold Medal win in 1996 he was contacted by Vince McMahon for a possible signing. Angle initially turned the contract offer down and almost ruined his chances of ever being a WWE Superstar because he refused to lose to who he was brought up to believe were ‘fake’ wrestlers:

“In 1996, after I won the gold medal, Vince McMahon said he’d like to meet with me. He threw a contract at me right away. It was a 10-year deal. It was more money than I ever saw in my lifetime at that time. I looked at the contract and stared back at Vince and said, ‘Mr. McMahon, thank you for the offer. I hope you know I’m an Olympic gold medalist, so I could never lose.’ I didn’t hear from Vince McMahon after that. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand what this was. As a kid, I was taught by my brothers and coaches, ‘don’t watch that stuff. It’s fake. You’re real.’ So I never did.”

After a while Angle seemed to have a change of heart and contacted then-head of WWE Talent Relations Jim Ross, who told him the contract offer from he and McMahon’s previous meeting was no longer available but he was more than welcome to come down and try out just like everyone else. Although he almost quite halfway through the first day of training, Angle impressed WWE officials so much he was offered a contract on day three of his tryout.

Despite having dropped the idea of never losing in a WWE ring, Angle still was hesitant when it came to hearing some of Vince McMahon’s ideas for his character:

“I said, ‘look, you’re this hero. At the same time, when we bring you into WWE, you’re going to be a heel, so to speak, because you’re so good. You’ve accomplished so much. You’re above the business. ‘I’m a real wrestler.’” McMahon continued, “and I said, ‘what’s going to happen is people are really going to boo the hell out of you.’ ‘Oh no, Vince, that’s not going to happen.’”

After hearing the negative reception Angle received from not only WWE fans around the world, but fans of his own hometown of Pittsburgh, Angle was finally able to admit McMahon knew what he was talking about:

“I doubted Vince McMahon the whole time. I doubted him from Day One. I said, ‘there’s no way in hell they’re going to boo me. There’s no way in hell they’re going to disrespect me. I’m an Olympic gold medalist. These people are going to love me.’ And he said, ‘no, they’re going to be the opposite.’ And he was right.”

H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions