Now, as some fans may or may not know, there was a time in the late 1990s when Kurt Angle landing in WWE following the end of his amateur wrestling career was far from a guarantee.

Sure, Angle still loved to grapple and had a solid head start when it came to transitioning into the squared circle, but he was intrigued by the idea of shoot fighting too and may have even pursued that option instead if he wasn't offered a ten-fight deal with just $150,000, which is far less money for far more physical damage when he was willing to accept.

But did you know that UFC, then in a position of power, came back to try to land Angle once more in 2006? It's true, as the “Olympic Hero” explained on the True Geordie show.

“I don't know if I would have been champion, but I definitely would have joined the UFC. I would have signed with them. They contacted me in 1996, right after the Olympics as well,” Kurt Angle said via Fightful. “Back then, Dana White wasn't any part of it. I think the Gracies owned it. They offered me a 10-fight deal for $150,000. That's $15,000 a fight. That didn't sound like a lot of money to me. Back then, it was for UFC. Those guys were only getting $5,000 for a fight. If they won the whole tournament, they got $50,000. That was it. So the contract wasn't so bad back then, but what it is now today, these guys are getting $16-18 million a fight on pay-per-view now. Conor McGregor and Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey. So I passed on it, and I started wrestling in 1998 with WWE, and by 2000, UFC started becoming mainstream. I was like, man, I'd love to do that. Then what happened was, literally half a year later, I broke my neck again, and that was it. When I broke my neck again, I lost all my strength in my arms. I lost feeling in my hands. To this day, I have no feeling in my pinky fingers and my pointer fingers. So I have a lot of neck damage, and it caused me to lose a lot of strength in my upper body. So there was no way, even though I entertained it in 2006.”

Whoa, Angle in UFC back in 2006? What are the details on that one? Fortunately, Angle was willing to discuss the matter a little further.

Kurt Angle details his talks with UFC in 2006.

Discussing the matter further, Kurt Angle explained how his talks with UFC came together in 2006, what the promotion had in mind for his debut, and why he ultimately turned it down.

“I went to Dana White in 2006 and said, ‘Hey, I'm ready.' He's like, okay, this is what we're gonna do. He offered me a deal,” Angle explained. “He wanted me to be on The Ultimate Fighter with Kimbo Slice. I said, ‘Dana, those guys don't get paid to be on that show.' He said, ‘Don't worry, I'll pay you a substantial amount of money just to be on it. I'll take care of you.' But he said l, ‘Listen, whether you win or not, I'll give you a six-fight deal. I said, well, that sounds fair. So I was getting ready to do it, and I ended up signing with IMPACT Wrestling/TNA a week prior. I thought that I could do both, which was crazy, it was stupid. But TNA was gonna give me a part-time contract, so I figured I could train UFC as well. So I told Dana, ‘I just signed with TNA. Can I do both?' He said, ‘No, you can't do both.' I said, ‘Dana, I have to respect this contract I have with TNA. I'll come back to you if my contract expires in a decent amount of time and I'm still at an age that you want me, I'll come back to you.' So I had to pass on the UFC because they wouldn't allow me to do both, and I just signed with TNA, and I didn't want to tell TNA, ‘Listen, I'm not coming, I'm gonna go with UFC.' Because I just signed a deal.”

Goodness, could you imagine what would have happened if White had called just two weeks prior? Would Angle have left professional wrestling behind once and for all? Would he have wrestled with Ronda Rousey against Paul “Triple H” Levesque and Stephanie McMahon? Would he have been retired by Baron Corbin at WrestleMania? Oh boy, oh boy, what could have been?