We still don't know what's going to become of Miro (a.k.a. Rusev) in the pro wrestling world, but he's now opened up about his desire to have a match with WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle. This was back when he was still United States Champion and undefeated, and before John Cena was chosen as his WrestleMania opponent, Miro went to WWE officials to pitch a bout with Angle.
"The first year I was with WWE, I pitched for Kurt Angle to come back," he explained. "That was before the John Cena situation. I think it was before, but anyways, I wanted to bring back Kurt. The Swagger thing happened at SummerSlam and I started thinking about what I could build towards for 'Mania. Nobody told me that I was going to work John for 'Mania. I wanted to wrestle Kurt."
"I talked to two people," he continued. "I'm not going to say who they are, but I talked to two people and they are really high up there. I said, 'How about we bring back Kurt? It's going to be great. One, he's the greatest professional wrestler ever. Two, it's USA coming back and I'm doing the Russian thing.' Kurt would have been the perfect person, but they told me no. This is verbatim from the person that told me. He said, 'We don't want to feel responsible if he comes back and dies.' That's from the person that told me."
This does make sense as when Angle did eventually return, Vince McMahon stopped him from wrestling and made him the RAW General Manager. Angle has since said that while he enjoyed that role, the time he spent out of the ring caused him to stiffen up, and that explains why his in-ring performance ended up being so disappointing.
It's a great shame WWE couldn't trust Angle, and it would have been great seeing him take down Rusev. Unfortunately, it clearly wasn't meant to be.