Kurt Angle Says He Would Have Been ’25 Time Champion’ Had He Signed A Part-Time WWE Deal in 2006

Had Kurt Angle had the opportunity to sign a part-time contract with WWE back in 2006, he says he would never have left.

Angle talked about that potential "alternative future" and much more during an interview posted on FoxSports.com.

He noted that in 2006, when he left WWE for TNA, Vince McMahon and company were not "handing out part-time contracts at the time. I mean, I wish they would have, but they weren’t. Very few wrestlers had them, like a Shawn Michaels or an Undertaker, so it wasn’t an option back then. What’s crazy is two years after I left, they started doing that. It was like ‘Dammit! I just missed it by two years.’ I would have stayed in WWE. I went to rehab back in 2006 and I got myself straight, took Vince McMahon’s advice, and I would have stayed. I wanted to stay, I just knew I couldn’t do that schedule. At the time, unfortunately, it wasn’t an option to be a part-timer, and I do understand it, because I was only in the business at that point for six and a half years. Part-timers usually have to put in that 20 or so years. So I understood that, but two or three years later they started doing that. It kind of sucked [laughs]. I missed that moment where I could have stayed, and I could have been a 25-time World Champion!”

Part-time contracts now have become fairly common for WWE. In fact, WrestleMania 33 will be headlined by a matchup between two part-timers, as Brock Lesnar challenges Goldberg for the Universal Title.

Angle is the headline inductee in the 2017 class for the WWE Hall of Fame. The ceremony will be held on March 31 in Orlando, two nights before WrestleMania.

Click here to check out the entire interview with Angle, conducted by FoxSports.com.