Kurt Angle has been open about struggling to watch his final WWE run, admitting he “looked like crap” during his last stretch before retirement.

Speaking on The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast, Angle reflected on his 2017 return to WWE and how things unfolded. At the time, he felt capable of wrestling at a high level, but Vince McMahon had other plans, first inducting him into the Hall of Fame and then placing him in the role of Raw General Manager before putting him back in the ring. By the time he was called to wrestle, his body was already breaking down.

“When I came back, I was wrestling really good, but Vince had a different idea,” Angle explained. “He wanted to induct me into the Hall of Fame first, before I wrestled. So I did the Hall of Fame and then Vince came to me and said, ‘Hey, we want to make you the GM of Raw.’ And I said, ‘Vince, I want to wrestle.’ He said, ‘We’ll get to that.’ So he makes me GM of Raw. And during this time, my knees are arthritic and they’re getting tighter and I’m less active. And for eight months, I didn’t do anything. Then all of a sudden he’s like, ‘Kurt, I want you to wrestle.’ That’s going to be a problem [laughs].”

Angle admitted that when he did finally step back into the ring, his physical condition made him feel out of place. “Literally, when I got in there, I looked like crap. I mean, I couldn’t do anything. It made me want to retire earlier than I wanted to. That’s why I retired with Baron Corbin at WrestleMania [35]. Because I didn’t want people to look at me and say, ‘Gosh, he used to be great, but now…’ I didn’t want that. So I decided this is it.”

Since retiring, Angle has undergone a double knee replacement in 2022 that has improved his mobility. However, his neck remains a serious problem, leaving him unable to feel his pinkies and often experiencing pain that runs down his arms. He has explored options such as stem cell treatments and surgery, but doctors have told him there is little that can be done.

“I feel pretty good. The only thing that bothers me now is I have motor skill problems,” he said. “My hands shake, because my neck is so bad. And there’s nothing I can do about it. My neck naturally fused together, I think I already told you that. So I don’t have any more discs in between my vertebrae. It just all fused together, it’s all bone. I went to have disc replacement surgery, and the doctor took an MRI. He said, ‘You don’t have any discs.’”

Despite the ongoing pain, Angle remains grateful that his knee replacements allow him to function without the constant agony he once endured.