One MIND-BLOWING Secret From Every Year Of WWE History
17. 2008 - WWE Creative Tossed Ideas Around For Kurt Angle
Kurt Angle was fired by WWE in 2006 and only returned to the company in 2017 as an onscreen authority figure and part-time talent.
It was sadly too late for Angle to do much of note, good value as he was for the odd meme. In the best match of that rather bleak run - alongside Ronda Rousey versus Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania 34 - he was a passenger. Elsewhere, a physical wreck, the intensity was gone. He was so far gone, after going to absurd degrees to “be” Kurt Angle in TNA, that he couldn’t rely on another ‘I’ to help him through. The intelligence required to execute a fun smoke and mirrors match only surfaced once, when he inexplicably joined the Shield at Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2017. Retiring him to get Baron Corbin over was always a bird-brained idea, but, realistically, there was no better alternative.
Angle was incredible in TNA, boasting a better in-ring catalogue than even his vaunted early-to-mid 2000s WWE run, but because it was tucked away - and because it unfolded amid countless punchlines - Angle’s legacy as an all-timer is disputed.
It might have gone differently, had WWE re-signed him - and in 2008, the creative team was asked to toss ideas around for a potential return.
Obviously, that never happened - but the idea of Angle, still somewhere near his prime, wrestling CM Punk and Daniel Bryan would have been incredible.