Kurt Angle Reveals The 2 WWE Opponents He Requested Before In-Ring Retirement
Before he retired from in-ring competition in 2019, WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle got to enjoy a small retirement tour.
Angle's final WWE match was a singles bout with Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Angle lost a match that was relatively short and widely regarded as a disappointment. It also marked the end of the program between the former Raw general manager (Angle) and the Constable of Raw (Corbin).
The Olympic gold medalist had actually pushed for a retirement match against 16-time World Champion John Cena at WrestleMania, but Vince McMahon wanted Angle to face Corbin instead. Cena didn't wrestle a match, though he made an appearance by interrupting Elias' WrestleMania 35 concert. Cena closed out the segment by hitting Elias with the Attitude Adjustment.
Though Angle didn't get his preferred match with Cena at "The Show of Shows", WWE was willing to grant Angle two desired opponents for his farewell tour. The former Raw GM revealed which two superstars he requested (and received) during a recent edition of the The Kurt Angle Show (h/t WrestlingInc.com).
"I had the Kurt Angle farewell tour and they allowed me to request certain matches, and I requested AJ Styles and Samoa Joe over any other WWE wrestler and I made sure I got those two," Angle explained." AJ and I went out there, it was three minutes...But what’re you going to do? There was no finish and it just kind of sucked. Unfortunately for AJ and I, it wasn’t the finish that we wanted."
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Angle and Styles had a storied rivalry during their time together in the rival TNA promotion. They faced off for the last time on the Mar. 26, 2019 episode of WWE SmackDown, but the match was interrupted by Randy Orton. The Viper delivered an RKO to The Phenomenal One, which led to a disqualification victory for Angle. However, the Hall of Famer put an end to the attack by delivering an Angle Slam on Orton.
A day earlier, Angle faced Samoa Joe on WWE Raw. Just when it looked like Joe would escape with the victory, Angle performed a surprise pinfall to pick up the final clean win of his in-ring career.
A Kind Gesture By WWE
It's too bad that most of Angle's final matches were relatively short and not exactly high in quality. But it was nice of the company to let Angle choose two his final opponents, and both Joe and Styles were excellent choices on his end. Again, Angle had long histories with them in TNA, and they were both among the WWE's top in-ring performers.
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