We all know Kurt Angle didn’t retire how he should have.
A legendary performer of his standing deserved to go out like Ric Flair did against Shawn Michaels or how Stone Cold Steve Austin did against The Rock, or even Batista did against Triple H.
Cena openly wanted John Cena to be the man to put him away. Instead, he was given Baron Corbin.
No disrespect to the talented Corbin here, but fans didn’t want to see WWE conclude their storyline at WrestleMania, they wanted to see Angle celebrated in a high-profile match.
On his new podcast with Conrad Thompson, The Kurt Angle Show Podcast, The Olympic Hero explained how he tried his best to secure Cena with Vince McMahon.
“I never reached out to John,” Angle explained. “I decided to go to Vince and talk to him about it, when I had the meeting with him I’m not even sure he even contacted John.
“I wasn’t expecting John to be at WrestleMania so I went to Vince a good month and a half before WrestleMania to tell him ‘I want John Cena at WrestleMania, I want it to be my retirement match.
“I’d love to wrestle John because I started out his career and I wanted him to end mine.’ I was hoping that he would put me in that match but it just didn’t happen.”
We know that match didn’t happen, but Cena did indeed end up appearing at WrestleMania 35.
He brought back his Dr. of Thuganomics gimmick that made him so popular originally and confronted Elias, whichi made Angle rue the missed opportunity.
“That’s what made me go crazy was he’s the Thuganomics Cena and I’m the Olympic hero, this would’ve been perfect,” Angle said.
“I didn’t think he was going to do a throwback and ironically he did. I saw him at WrestleMania, I gave him a big hug and told him I wanted him to be his match. He said I know, it just couldn’t happen.
“I didn’t ask him why, maybe Cena didn’t want to wrestle at WrestleMania. Maybe that’s the reason it didn’t occur, I don’t know.”