Kurt Angle reflects on negotiations with the UFC.
Angle is one of the most decorated amateur wrestlers to cross over into the world of professional wrestling, joining the industry with a gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games with a broken neck. He would then compete for the WWE from 1998 to 2006.
That being said, professional wrestling was not the only avenue available to Angle following his Olympic gold medal win. Mixed martial arts was on the rise in the late 90s, and Angle has been open about the interest the UFC had to bring him in.
While speaking to The True Geordie, Angle looked back on negotiations with the promotion, starting with the initial offer that was made after he won his gold medal.
“I don’t know if I would have been champion, but I definitely would have joined the UFC. I would have signed with them. They contacted me in 1996, right after the Olympics as well. Back then, Dana White wasn’t any part of it. I think the Gracies owned it. They offered me a 10-fight deal for $150,000. That’s $15,000 a fight. That didn’t sound like a lot of money to me. Back then, it was for UFC. Those guys were only getting $5,000 for a fight. If they won the whole tournament, they got $50,000. That was it. So the contract wasn’t so bad back then, but what it is now today, these guys are getting $16-18 million a fight on pay-per-view now. Conor McGregor and Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey. So I passed on it, and I started wrestling in 1998 with WWE, and by 2000, UFC started becoming mainstream. I was like, man, I’d love to do that. Then what happened was, literally half a year later, I broke my neck again, and that was it. When I broke my neck again, I lost all my strength in my arms. I lost feeling in my hands. To this day, I have no feeling in my pinky fingers and my pointer fingers. So I have a lot of neck damage, and it caused me to lose a lot of strength in my upper body. So there was no way, even though I entertained it in 2006."
Angle continued, detailing the negotiations that took place in 2006. With the UFC looking to boost the roster of The Ultimate Fighter that year, Angle was offered a paid deal to appear on the show, something that was not common practice. While he had interest, Angle would have to turn down the offer due to signing his deal with TNA.
" I went to Dana White in 2006 and said, ‘Hey, I’m ready.’ He’s like, okay, this is what we’re gonna do. He offered me a deal. He wanted me to be on The Ultimate Fighter with Kimbo Slice. I said, ‘Dana, those guys don’t get paid to be on that show.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay you a substantial amount of money just to be on it. I’ll take care of you.’ But he said l, ‘Listen, whether you win or not, I’ll give you a six-fight deal. I said, well, that sounds fair. So I was getting ready to do it, and I ended up signing with IMPACT Wrestling/TNA a week prior. I thought that I could do both, which was crazy, it was stupid. But TNA was gonna give me a part-time contract, so I figured I could train UFC as well. So I told Dana, ‘I just signed with TNA. Can I do both?’ He said, ‘No, you can’t do both.’ I said, ‘Dana, I have to respect this contract I have with TNA. I’ll come back to you if my contract expires in a decent amount of time and I’m still at an age that you want me, I’ll come back to you.’ So I had to pass on the UFC because they wouldn’t allow me to do both, and I just signed with TNA, and I didn’t want to tell TNA, ‘Listen, I’m not coming, I’m gonna go with UFC.’ Because I just signed a deal."
Angle of course would go on to have a run in TNA that included six world title reigns in the promotion before eventually returning to WWE in 2017, being inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame and becoming the RAW General Manager.
Angle would retire from the ring full time following a loss to Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35.
Elsewhere in the same interview, Angle stated his belief that Logan Paul could become a world champion some day. You can read more here.
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