WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle was the most recent guest on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions to talk about a multitude of pro-wrestling related topics, including how Angle was offered a huge contract from Vince McMahon to join WWE back in 1996 shortly after he won a gold medal at the olympics.

He (Vince McMahon) reached out to me right away. He gave me a nice deal, a 10-year deal and a multi-million dollar contract. I was relatively surprised. Well, for me it was a lot. It was $500,000 a year for 10 years. It was overwhelming because I didn’t make any money up to this point. All I did was train for the Olympics.

The former world champion explained that his agent told him to pass on the offer, which he did, due to wrestling being scripted. He later reveals that McMahon did not offer him the same amount of money once he decided to sign a few years later.

That was my life so it was hard to pass up at the time. But my agent at the time said, ‘You’re not doing this fake crap.’ I was like, ‘I could be a wrestling coach and for the next four years, I could do the appearances and make as much money as I can.’ But once the Olympics are over, it kind of dies down. I left my agent a couple of years after that. I contacted WWE and they did not give me the same contract. They told me I had to work my way up and try out.

The full episode can be found on the WWE Network. (H/T and transcribed by Fightful)