Kurt Angle: For Him, Wrestling Retirement Will Be Permanent

When Kurt Angle finally retires from wrestling, he will not be known as Captain Comeback.

In an interview with Wrestling Observer Radio (as reported by WrestlingInc.com), the 44-year-old former Olympian says that once he hangs up his wrestling gear, it will be for good:

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I've got two more years left at Impact Wrestling and then I'm going to have a retirement year and that's going to be it. I think I'll be done and once I retire, you're not going to see me back in a ring again, that's for sure.

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Angle, who starred in WWE before moving to TNA, did not indicate in the interview if the “retirement year” will include a final return to WWE. But he did say that once he hangs up his wrestling gear, that will be it:

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I'm not going to be a guy that retires and keeps coming back. When I'm gone, I'm gone. Same thing as amateur wrestling; when I won the world championships [and] Olympics, I left and I never went back. Same for pro.

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Angle had what WWF/E has called the greatest rookie year of any star in company history, according to his Wikipedia page. From 1999 to 2000, Angle captured WWF/E’s Intercontinental and European championships, the King of the Ring tournament and the WWF Championship.

By the time he left WWE in 2006, he was a six-time World champion. He also held the U.S., Hardcore and World Tag Team championships.

In TNA, he won the World Championship five times, the World Tag Team Championship two times and the X-Division Championship once. He is the only wrestler to have held world championships in WWE, WCW and TNA.

In 2010, Wrestling Observer Newsletter named Angle “Wrestler of the Decade.”

Angle won the gold medal in heavyweight freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He attempted to try out for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London but was sidetracked by a knee injury.

Follow Bill Atkinson on Twitter at @BAtkinson1963.