WWE news: Kurt Angle recalls the time when Vince McMahon told him 'let’s fight right now'

Kurt Angle recently opened up on his meeting with Vince McMahon that eventually led to his release from WWE back in 2006. Angle, who has previously touched upon the topic, this time extensively spoke about the incident, his addiction to pain killers, and the anger he felt towards McMahon. Kurt was released from the company just a few weeks before he was to be moved to WWE ECW as the brand's new frontman. The Olympic Gold Medalist spoke on the most recent edition of the Kurt Angle Show, saying:

Kurt recalled that he asked McMahon for a meeting to address the injuries that he has sustained and his pain killer addiction, however, when he sat down to have a meeting with him, McMahon was not ready to release Angle. Instead, he was ready to fight him. Vince told Angle, "You want to beat my ass?" and he then stood up and took his jacket off and said, "let’s fight right now". Angle spoke at length about how he never fought a single match high on drugs but after the match, the pain would be so intense he could not help himself and ended up having "20 to 25 pills at a time".

Angle just wanted out to avoid accidentally killing himself

Angle said he was just angry at himself and angry at the company. He then left the room where McMahon and Angle were meeting and went outside and started crying. The company wouldn’t release him up to that point, they wanted to keep him and wanted him to go to rehab and take a break and come back. He then went back in and said to Vince, "I can’t do this anymore," while he was crying. He then explained that he told McMahon he was going to kill himself, not commit suicide but accidentally, by possibly overdosing on drugs or wrestling himself to death.

I said, if you don’t release me, I think I’m gonna kill myself. I didn’t mean I was gonna commit suicide, I meant I was accidentally gonna kill myself – OD on painkillers, wrestle myself to death, I didn’t know. I had to get out. Vince looks at me and says, ‘You’re released. Take a break, go to rehab, come back, and we’ll have a contract waiting for you. Just take your time.’ I appreciated that and was very grateful.

Angle then said that he was over that period and apologised many times to McMahon. In fact, according to Angle, they now have a "great relationship".

"The thing is, I didn’t talk to him for 11 years. When I came back in 2017, the first thing he said to me was, ‘Kurt, you were a real pain in the ass.’ I really was. I was so hard to deal with and I couldn’t do anything but apologize to him 100 times. I knew I was wrong. We made amends and the rest was history. I have a great relationship with him now. But this is the first time I’ve told that story, and it was really difficult to tell because I’ve never told anybody that before."

(Image: AP/ @therealkurtangle - Instagram)