Kurt Angle is probably best known for his WWE run as he racked up six world titles and became the fifth Grand Slam champion in the company’s history. He also came into the company with an Olympic gold medal on his resume, which is just as impressive.
Pro wrestling fans who follow the sport closely know that Angle was a beast in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). He was a six-time world champion, a two-time tag team champion and an X Division champion during his near-decade run there.
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US wrestler and actor Kurt Angle poses on Nov. 4, 2017, at the 2017 Paris Games Week at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris. (AFP via Getty Images)
Angle told OutKick Dropkick he believed he had a “better career” in TNA.
“To be honest with you, I had an incredible career in both WWE and TNA and I believe that I had a better career in TNA and, unfortunately, a lot of those WWE fans didn’t get to see it and I think that they would have seen my career. … Now we have a lot of great TNA fans all over the world but here in the United States, it’s a far second place to, before AEW came around, but it was a far second place to WWE. But I would have loved for the WWE fans to see me wrestle in TNA.”
Angle put on some great matches in TNA with Abyss, Samoa Joe, A.J. Styles and the like.
But for a WWE fan who never saw him wrestle in TNA, he would point them to his matches against Joe and Styles.
“Any match with Samoa Joe or AJ Styles,” he said on behalf of Gambling.com, the guide to the best online sportsbooks. “It doesn’t really matter. My debut match against Samoa Joe at the pay-per-view, I think it might have been it might have been Bound for Glory, or right after it, but we had a banger of a match and I really enjoyed working with both of them. Joe was really physical and AJ was really athletic.”
Angle added that Joe’s background as a ground-and-pound grappler worked well with his freestyle wrestling background. Even with Styles flying around the ring at times when he was young, Angle said the two were able to mesh well.
Angle won two of the King of the Mountain matches during his time in TNA. The King of the Mountain match was one of the unique bouts in the company as competitors fight to hang a title belt on a hook suspended above the cage. In a way, it was a reverse ladder match.
Kurt Angle attends Spike TV’s 2006 Video Game Awards arrivals at The Galen Center in Los Angeles, Calif. (FilmMagic)
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OutKick Dropkick asked Angle whether he’s surprised those unique matches haven’t made their way to the WWE just yet.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t already,” he said. “WWE got really creative at a certain point in time where they were doing some really cool stuff. And it would be great advice to the WWE to use some of those things. I don’t know if they’re patented or not. I believe they aren’t patented, but you could always change the name and mix it up a little bit, make it a little different, but TNA was always very creative with their pay-per-views.”
The Olympic champion was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame in 2013.
The TNA Hall of Fame includes Angle, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Earl Hebner, Gail Kim, Abyss, Ken Shamrock, Awesome Kong, Raven, Traci Brooks, Rhino, Bob Ryder and Mickie James.
Kurt Angle is in action during WrestleMania XX on March 14, 2004, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. (WWE via Getty Images)
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TNA will induct three new members at its Bound for Glory pay-per-view in October. ODB, Amazing Red and Konnan will be a part of that class.
