Kurt Angle Reveals He Could Have Faced John Cena at WWE WrestleMania

Despite only crossing paths in the early 2000s, John Cena and Kurt Angle have been linked to each other for the majority of both of their careers. Much of that is due to Angle ushering Cena into the WWE, as the future 16-time world champion answered the Olympic Gold Medalist’s open challenge on a June 2002 episode of SmackDown. The two would properly feud a couple of years later, when Cena traded in his trunks and wrestling boots for jean shorts and Jordans. Even as they spent the next decade in different promotions, all roads always led back to Cena and Angle.

If the former TNA World Champion had his way, his road would’ve ended with his old rival.

“When I presented to Vince McMahon that I was going to retire after WrestleMania that year, I told him I knew that I was losing a step. I knew I wasn’t the same as before,” Angle told Rene Dupree (h/t Fightful). “I didn’t like my performances and I said to Vince [McMahon], ‘I wanna retire after this WrestleMania, but I’d like to ask you for a favor. I’d like you to put me with John Cena, because I started his career so I’d like him to end my career.’”

Unfortunately for Angle, his prior commitment to a long-running feud made a bout with Cena at WWE WrestleMania 35 illogical; however, former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon did offer him an ultimatum.

“He said, ‘Kurt, you have a program with Baron Corbin, it’s been going on for six months. You have to finish it,’” Angle recalled McMahon telling him. “‘If you wanna wait till next year, I’ll give you John Cena next year.’ I told [him I couldn’t wait another year]. I totally understood. Vince was right, I was doing a program with Baron. It was going five or six months and I had to see it through.”

Angle revealed that he does have some regrets about not attempting a match with Cena at the following year’s WrestleMania.

“He did give me the option of going another year and wrestling Cena, and I probably should’ve done that looking back,” Angle said. “I probably could have just laid back and not wrestled for a good six or seven or eight months and started to get myself ready. I gained a lot of weight in this particular time, I could have got away from the product and got in better shape and then came back for WrestleMania and wrestled John Cena.”

It is worth noting that if Angle agreed to wrestle Cena at WWE WrestleMania 36, not only would it have been the second retirement match on the show, but it would have been in front of no fans. Mania 36 was held in an empty WWE Performance Center, and featured numerous cinematic matches to make up for the lack of crowd. Cena would wrestle Bray Wyatt in a Firefly Funhouse Match, which ultimately played out like a career retrospective.

Since his bout with Corbin, Angle has remained retired despite receiving numerous comeback offers from AEW and Impact Wrestling.