WWE Hall of Famer, Olympic gold medalist, and pro wrestling legend Kurt Angle announces his retirement after one more WrestleMania match. Angle of course first achieved international fame by winning the wrestling gold medal for the U.S. at the 1996 summer Olympic games, a feat he infamously accomplished with a "broken freakin' neck." Angle made the jump to pro wrestling for WWE at Survivor Series 1999, and took to the scripted sport in a way rarely seen from athletes making the jump from another line of work.
By October 2000, Angle was defeating no less than The Rock to claim his first WWE world championship, and would go on to win the company's top prize multiple times, as well as a wide assortment of other titles and accolades. Angle would remain a top star for WWE until 2006, when he left the company to begin a career in upstart promotion TNA Impact Wrestling. Angle would win their top titles many times as well, and be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame. Angle left TNA and headed back to WWE in 2017, and was inducted into WWE's Hall of Fame that year.
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Since his return to WWE, Angle has mostly played a non-wrestling role for the company, serving for a long while as the onscreen general manager of Raw. Angle has had a handful of matches, but it's become pretty clear that he isn't quite the "wrestling machine" he once was. Angle himself seems to realize that, as on tonight's episode of Raw, Angle announced that he'll soon retire from the ring, after having one final match at WrestleMania XXXV.
While there's always some sadness from fans when a beloved legend finally hangs up the boots and calls it a career, Angle's various injuries have really caught up to him in the last several years. At age 50, it makes perfect sense that Angle would decide to retire before he physically deteriorates much further. That said, while we now know when Angle will have his last match, we don't know who it will be against.
Most of Angle's greatest WWE rivals are either retired now themselves or already scheduled for matches at WrestleMania. Triple H is newly set to face off with Dave Bautista, while Brock Lesnar defends the Universal Championship against Seth Rollins. Shawn Michaels, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, and Edge are all retired, the latter two due to injury. Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero are of course deceased. One possibility is John Cena, who's not currently booked for anything at WrestleMania, but is expected to appear at the event. Another is Samoa Joe, Angle's greatest TNA rival, and current United States champion. For now, fans will just have to wait and see.