I wondered what that was like, but also if there was anyone else, any of the other wrestlers who may have said anything around that time.

You know what? I don't remember.

Honestly, I'm sure some of them did.

But I remember Vince because I was there, I was meeting with him, and he wanted me to get help.

And I didn't want help, and that's why I left the company.

And I ended up going to TNA, Impact Wrestling.

And what's crazy is, I ended up doing what Vince wanted me to do.

So how are you dealing with that?

Have you ever yourself or seen other people have real problems with each other after the match because they didn't look after each other and there's an injury there or...

Um, you know what? There was one time when I got in a fight with Eddie Guerrero.

And what happened was, we were supposed to go out and get heat on Eddie.

He had a tag match, and he got done with the tag match, and myself and the Honor Society, this was my group that I had at that particular time, I think it was Luther Raines and Mark Jindrak.

And we went out there, we got heat on Eddie, we beat him up.

I didn't touch Eddie, I actually worked on Chavo Guerrero.

And they beat up Eddie pretty badly.

blew my mind.

Did you soak it up, or was there any emptiness when you finally reached a goal? You're like, well, what do I do now? What was that moment like?

Yes, yes, man.

Listen, all I thought about when I was a kid growing up in high school, college, was the Olympic gold medal.

I didn't think about my life afterward.

I literally was focused on the gold medal and didn't care about anything else.

And after I won the gold medal, I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do now? Like, I don't, you know, I knew I had a college degree.

I could be a teacher because I had an education degree.

And I kind of wondered, was that your idea or was the creative involved? Like, how did that come about? You

Oh, geez.

And I was like, "Okay, well, well I'm, I'm listening." He's like, "Well, you know, you, we want you to come to one of our events and be a guest and, and commentate, 'cause Taz is gonna wrestle, um, Little Guido in an amateur wrestling match." I was like, "Okay, I can commentate that." So I'm, I'm watching, you know, the amateur wrestling match that they're having, and they're, they're saying the scoring wrong.

[laughs] You know, like, uh, uh, uh, Taz took him down, and it was like, "Two points." And then Guido got up and escaped, and they said, "Two points." And I'm like, "No, that's a point."

Right.

But I feel like I'd have remembered that.

So I came back and I asked Mark, and I was like, "Hey," I, like, you know, "I had this, you know, interview with this guy, and doing the book, and you know, this ever happen?" He was like, he goes, "No." He goes, "I feel like if that happened you'd have remembered it." I said, I said, "That's what I thought, too." And he's like, "Yep." And then, I don't, and then I hear later on-

got tricked.

Okay.

Damn Paul Heyman.

I don't know how he gets my number, but he calls me.

He says, listen, Kurt, we have this new wrestling.

It's kind of identical to your type of wrestling.

It's real.

I...

Were you worried initially? Were you like, "This doesn't really seem like me, I don't know if this is gonna work"?

Yeah, I was nerv...

Listen, I- I'll tell you this.

When I trained for the seven months before I started on TV, um, I- I only cut one promo, and it was horrible.

It was in Memphis.

And um, so when Vince McMahon told me I was making my debut, uh, at Survivor Series, uh, I said, "Vince, uh," um, he said, "You're gonna cut a promo tonight and have a wrestle match." I said, "Vince, I can't cut promos." See, we didn't have OVW or NXT back then.

We had no way for pre- for preparing.

Yeah.

Take, take me through this process for you.

It, it was hard, because I didn't know how the boys were gonna take me.

You know, this, having, um, you know, other shooters come in the business and not doing so well.

Some of them were okay.

Maybe a handful were great, but most of them weren't that good.

I, I knew there was a lot of pressure on me to show that I could work properly and not be one of those guys that has a shooter mentality that's gonna either hurt someone or just eat them up the whole match.

I had to learn how to respect the other people, and especially the main eventers.

But so you win another championship from me, and you're in the ring with your family.

them?

And my brother was like, that's a good idea.

So he started wrestling and he had success right away.

And he qualified for state his first year.

He took fifth in the Greco Roman Nationals, his second year wrestling.

So he ends up going to college on a full scholarship.

His wife gets pregnant for a second time.

book.

Yeah, where did that come from? Where was the idea? Vinnie

Mack came up with the idea and he put it in my head and I just went through with it, but it was crazy.

And I'm sure Book will tell you about the matches.

The matches were awesome, but we kind of got them cut short.

There's a We were supposed to have a third match.

It never occurred.

Yeah, so guys, did you ever go back and watch that match?

And that would have enabled us to do a third match, which would have been the classic.

when you go in

there.

Yes, yes.

I was injured, yeah.

There was only a few days after the event.

Okay.

So Johnny Laurinaitis was in there with Vince, and Shane McMahon was in the meeting too.

Did he hand this to paper to you or was he reading these? He set it on the table in

Is there a certain amount of regret that you have? If you had picked a different career after the Olympics? You know

what? I wish I would have finished my career in WWE 10 years shorter.

WLB NTNA.

So in other words, instead of 20 years, I think 10 would have been enough and I think I would have been okay.

But I, I pushed myself further and, you know, got into my forties and I kept working at a high pace and, uh, The only time, the reason why I retired is because I was losing a step and I could see it when I watched me on film.

I didn't like what I saw and I didn't want the fans remembering me as a broken down Kurt Angle.

I wanted them to remember me when I was in my prime.

So

And you broke that in the Olympic trials even prior to even starting, right? Yeah.

Yes.

The first round of the Olympic trials, it was at the US Open.

I was in the semifinals.

I was having a great tournament.

And this wrestler named Jason Lucchini, he's He hit me with an arm throw and he threw me and I was going to go to my back and I stuck my head up so I wouldn't go to my back.

And I went inverting into the mat right on my head.

are fake.