Kurt Angle broke his neck five times throughout both his amateur and professional wrestling careers. Famously once during the Olympics, and a further four times in a WWE ring. These, along with a list of other injuries, left Angle in constant pain, and he couldn’t handle a full-time WWE schedule and requested his release in 2006. WWE obliged as there was genuine concern the Olympic hero could die and didn’t want that happening on their watch.
At the time of his WWE release, Angle was taking up to 65 extra-strength Vicodin a day and has revealed on his podcast he was so out of control he would actually leave threatening messages for Vince McMahon. Surprisingly WWE’s head-honcho actually ignored them, and Angle had to go and talk to McMahon.
I just couldn’t keep my body together. My hamstring, groin, abdominal, shoulder, neck, and everything was just. I was falling apart. I started lashing out at Vince, and Vince was ignoring me, which made me even angrier. I would leave him threatening messages on his answer machine, on his cell phone. It just got so far out of control, you know, eventually, I had to go to Vince and say, listen, we need to have a talk.Kurt Angle
This talk resulted in McMahon offering to send Angle to rehab and then bring him back in six months. However, Angle would decline this offer and signed with TNA for their lighter schedule. Sadly he didn’t get his life together straight away and had four DUI’s over five years. Thankfully, in 2013, he got clean after checking into rehab and returned to WWE in 2017, speaking to McMahon for the first time in 11 years.
Angle retired from the ring in 2019 at Wrestlemania 35, putting Baron Corbin over in the process, and was released as part of WWE’s mass cuts in April 2020. Since then, the Olympic gold medalist has had stem cell therapy at BioXcellarator in Colombia to help him cope with his constant pain. Doctors have told him he requires another neck surgery, and this one will keep him bedbound for up to six months. It’s sad to think of anyone in constant discomfort, so with luck, it significantly improves his quality of life when he does get further surgery.
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