WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard on a number of topics, including why he thinks the TNA Wrestling portion of his in-ring career is under-appreciated.
Angle said, “I always get, you know Kurt Angle would have been the best of all time if he would have stuck in the WWE and wrestled there for 20 years. That may be true, but what’s the difference. I wrestled in TNA for 11 of my 20 years, and I think that should be added on. I had a better career in TNA, I was wrestling guys like AJ Styles and Samoa Joe and Sting, and I had a lot better career in TNA, because I came into my own, you know, when you’re a professional wrestler, it takes you about 6-7 years to really master your craft, and that’s when I left WWE, after six years and I went to TNA and I was a man on a mission there and I just did incredibly well there. I don’t get enough accolades for it, you know. I mean, I know that a lot of people consider me one of the best of all time now, regardless of my TNA career, but that career gets a little bit stifled. That really bothers me a little bit, because you know, I was really that good, I mean I had an incredible career, don’t get me wrong, the WWE career was great too. Now, me coming back to the WWE in 2017, I don’t even count that, because by then I lost a step, I wasn’t the same person. The reason why I retired early is because I looked at myself on television and I was like, wow this looks like an old man wrestling, and I didn’t like what I saw.”
You can check out Angle’s comments in the video below.