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‘Vince and I never spoke again,’ WWE legend Kurt Angle recalls incident when he almost got physical with McMahon
Kurt Angle is one of the legends of professional wrestling. The 1996 Olympic champion has carved out his name in the world of sports entertainment and is known as
Kurt Angle is one of the legends of professional wrestling. The 1996 Olympic champion has carved out his name in the world of sports entertainment and is known as one of the best wrestlers in the history of the game. His transition from amateur wrestler to WWE was extremely quick and even surprised the officials at the company. He then went to become a WWE champion while being involved in several top storylines.
However, things came crashing down after 2004 as Angle developed an addiction to painkillers. It lead to an eventual breakdown of the relationship with WWE chairman Vince McMahon and he left the organization in 2006. For the next 10 years, Angle wrestled away from the WWE and only made his return in 2016. Angle was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
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However, Angle has revealed that the time in 2005 was an extremely tumultuous as his addiction to painkillers took a toll on him. He said he almost got into a fight with McMahon while asking to leave.
“Vince and I were really close,” Angle noted.
“It was the last year and a half (during my first run in the WWE) that I got out of control. I was doing a lot of painkillers; I was getting injured quite a bit. I was wrestling full time. It was really getting to me. I was taking up to 65 extra-strength Vicodin a day. I was a wreck. Vince did not know this. Back then, they didn’t have that drug policy, so up until 2005-2006, they started drug testing. Before that, you could do whatever you wanted,’ Angle told Chris Van Vliet in an interview.
“I was really screwed up-psychically, mentally, psychologically, and I had to leave. When I did leave, Vince and I never spoke again, until I came back, two years ago. The first time we saw each other, we hugged each other. I apologized to him for the things I did and said, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ So, we’re back to normal. Vince has always been a father figure to me. I never wanted to intentionally hurt him.”
Angle then went on to say he almost got into a physical altercation with McMahon.
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“I decided I wanted to quit, and my manager and I, we went to the WWE Headquarters,” Angle began. “What happened was I injured myself, really badly. My hamstring and groin there was blood all over across my genitals. The blood was running down both of my legs on the inside, like a bruising. I showed it to Vince when we had our meeting, and I said we need to talk Vince because I’m not doing very well.
“So, he pulls out about five tight pages of text messages and phone call messages I sent him, and I’m reading them. It says, ‘Vince, I’m going to beat the s**t out of you when I see you. Vince, you better answer my call or I’m going to kick your a*s.’ Really, really crazy stuff. I don’t remember sending him those. Unfortunately, at the time, I was taking painkillers, and every once and a while, I would blackout.
“So, he showed me all of these messages, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God,’ I actually said this stuff. He stood up, took his jacket off, and said, ‘You want to kick my a*s, let’s go right now.’ I was like ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe Vince McMahon wants to beat my a*s.’ This guy has been my father figure for seven years, I have too much respect for him to stand up, but he wanted to go. I left the room, came back, and I just broke down. I told him I can’t do this anymore, I need you to release me, and he did.”
McMahon did try and offer rehab assistance to Angle, but he denied the help and signed on to TNA just five days after being released from the WWE.
“Yes, he wanted me to go to rehab,” Angle stated. “He said ‘I want you to go for a couple months, and then come back in six months, and we’ll start your contract back up.’ I said no. I decided I was going to leave and go to TNA.”
