10 WWE Stars Who Didn’t See Their Own Downfall Coming

3. Kurt Angle

Kurt Angle presumably thought he was superhuman.

The insane schedule he worked whilst seriously hurt was sheer madness. Angle, who had crippling neck issues and even wrestled through a "broken freakin' neck", began self-medicating to mask the pain of his injuries. That was never going to be a long-term solution to his problems.

All the pain pills in the world couldn't prevent WWE from worrying that they might have a PR disaster on their hands if they didn't step in and try to help or distance themselves from Kurt. Eventually, they chose the latter approach and cut ties with the Olympian in 2006. After that surprising release, Angle would go on to fight through more pain in TNA before cleaning himself up.

Kurt had been an indestructible wrestling machine for so many years that slowing down for anything seemed impossible. He'd find out first hand that cloaking behind medication wasn't going to blast away the damage he'd done to his body.