Kurt Angle, the former Olympic gold medallist who performed for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) from 1999 to 2006 will be headlining the WWE's Hall of Fame Class of 2017. Angle received word of his induction on Monday afternoon. He will be inducted on March 31 as part of the Wrestlemania 33 festivities at the Amway Center in Orlando, FL.
The news was first reported by ESPN and caught many fans off guard. Even Angle himself was surprised at the announcement. "I was shocked. I've been out of WWE for a long time and out of touch with them, so I didn't really expect this", Angle said in an interview with ESPN. He calls his induction a "huge honor" and goes on to say that the WWE Hall of Fame is the only Hall of Fame that he has yet to be inducted. He took to his Twitter account to announce the news with a simple tweet saying "I'm coming home."
"This is the one that means the most for me. I had a lot of fun entertaining the fans for seven years with WWE, and I'm glad that my hard work has paid off", Angle added. Angle spent 10 years with rival promotion TNA (Total Nonstop Action) Wrestling after he was granted his release from WWE in 2006.
Angle, now 48, had a post-WWE career that was filled with legal issues substance abuse problems, although he has been clean for the last three years. According to Angle, he does not have a relationship with Vince McMahon or Paul "Triple H" Levesque, although he did say that their breakup was a mutual one and he holds no ill will towards the WWE.
He had a brief conversation with Triple H last May, and many fans were expecting the company and Angle to have some sort of reunion. However, a follow-up call never came and Angle began to have some doubts whether he would ever return to the WWE. On Monday, Triple H called Angle himself to break the news to him about his induction into the company's Hall of Fame.
He says whether or not he will ever wrestle for the WWE again is irrelevant because he is proud of being inducted into their Hall of Fame. Angle spent most of 2016 away from wrestling, save for a few appearances on the independent scenes. He used his time off to spend it with his wife Giovanna, who just gave birth to their third child last November.
While Angle is mostly remembered as being an integral part of the WWE's highly successful "Attitude Era", he claims to identify himself more with the current PG direction the WWE product is going with. He also said that if he were to have one last match in the WWE, it would be against either AJ Styles or Seth Rollins.
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