Kurt Angle got close, twice, to signing a contract with Dana White and the UFC.
Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Angle admitted that he met with Dana White in 2006, after having left the WWE. The UFC president, however, required a full-time commitment from Angle even though he had just signed a part-time deal with TNA. After considering the state of his health, the Olympic Gold Medalist decided to continue on with wrestling and stay out of the octagon.
“It got pretty serious in 2006 after I left WWE,” Angle began by saying. “I flew out to meet with Dana White. He offered me a contract. It was a really good contract and at that time, I’d just signed with TNA. I didn’t want to ruffle the feathers by telling TNA, ‘Listen, I’m gonna go MMA.’ Because Dana White, when I signed my deal with TNA, said, ‘Well, you can’t do both. You have to do one or the other. You can’t do both.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m going part-time in TNA. I can do both.’ He said, ‘I can’t have you do both. I need you full time.’ So, I had to decide and I’d already signed with TNA. So, it was like, oh well. I might as well continue. In the back of my mind I was saying to myself, ‘I broke my neck five times already. I know my strength isn’t at 100%. My upper body strength, I lost about 40% strength in my arms, my shoulders. I have trouble with motor skills in my fingers.’ So, my neck was probably the reason why I didn’t follow through with MMA.”
With a second opportunity to try his hand in MMA in 2010, Angle met with White, again, but the outcome remained the same. He said the following:
“I did, in 2010, I went back to Dana and he offered me another contract. But when I sat home and thought about it, at that point I was forty years old. I knew that my body wasn’t gonna hold up for MMA. So, I turned down the contract again, unfortunately. I feel bad. Going out and seeing Dana White again. He invited me out again and offered me another deal and I actually turned it down, unfortunately. But I think I made the right move.”
Kurt Angle won a gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta with a broken neck. He would join WWE in 1998. He left the company in 2006 and joined TNA Wrestling where he stayed until 2016. In 2017, Angle was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
You can see our full interview with Kurt Angle at the top of the page, and can check out the Kurt Angle Show on AdFreeShows.com. You can also check out his nutrition line at this link.
