Kurt Angle‘s retirement from the WWE wasn’t the end of the legends appearances in the ring, but it did cause the WWE icon to go through a period of depression after taking the transition hard.
Angle’s comments come during a recent guest appearance on the M&F Reps podcast, where he mentioned that his transition from an everyday professional wrestler to retiring from all aspects of wrestling was something he had a hard time dealing with. Now, however, the superstar says he is completely happy with his life as a family man.
“Yeah, I’m really happy with my life right now,” said Angle (h/t Post Wrestling). “I was depressed for a while. Retiring from amateur wrestling, Olympics and then retiring from the WWE, I felt like I didn’t have a place in life anymore and I fell out of place and don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love spending time with my family, with my wife and kids. But from a career standpoint, I thought, what could I do next? I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to and I don’t regret anything that I’ve done up until now but where do I go from here? And I had to learn that now, I’m a non-athlete. I do go to the gym, I go for a run every once in a while but I don’t do athletic stuff anymore. Now I pretty much work behind the desk and do the podcast and my supplement company and I take acting classes every week. I’m pretty much here. This is where I do my work now which is crazy because I really didn’t have a job my entire life. All I did was train for a living. That was my job and that’s what I did for the Olympics and for WWE and now, I realize there’s a lot more to life than just working out.”
Angle also briefly touched on the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent shutting down of major business and other gatherings, also had a similar effect on him. The superstar said that it’s still something he’s dealing with now, as he’s just getting out of the “funk” of not being able to see people.
“Well I will tell you, the pandemic really messed me up,” Angle said. “Unfortunately, the pandemic occurred right after I retired. You talk about depression, I’m retired, I was depressed from that then the pandemic hit and the whole world stood still for a long period of time and you know, I’m just kind of coming out of it right now. I had a lot of depression and it set me back for a little bit. But, I realize now that there’s other things in life that I can enjoy. I can enjoy my family. I can go to the park with them and play with my kids and just do things I normally never did before because my whole entire life, it was always about Kurt Angle, what’s best for Kurt Angle? What does Kurt Angle want? What does Kurt Angle need? It was always about me. I never thought about anybody else; not my wife or my kids and now, I realize, it was about my wife and kids this whole time. That’s the whole reason I was doing everything and it’s just really sad you get to that point and you realize, man, you’re a selfish son of a gun. But, rightfully so, you have to be if you’re training for the Olympics and you have to be when you’re traveling 300 days for the WWE. But, it was very difficult to make that adjustment.”
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