In front of his hometown crowd of Pittsburgh, Kurt Angle made the major announcement on RAW that he’ll be retiring from wrestling after he has his last match at WrestleMania 35 in New York City. WWE caught up with Angle backstage after his win against Apollo to get further details about the Olympic Hero’s retirement. The full video as well as some brief transcriptions are below:

(transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone):

Kurt Angle on how he came to the decision of retiring:

It was really tough for me to come to that decision. It actually has been nipping at me for the past year. I’m 50 years old. I know I’m not the same as I used to be. I’m slower in the ring, I can still get the job done, but if I can’t perform at the Kurt Angle of 2006, I don’t want to perform at all. You finally know when you’re time’s come and you got to make a decision and I’ve decided I that want to keep my legacy intact and I think that retiring is the best decision for me.

On getting ready for his final match:

If I want to be the Kurt Angle I expect to be, the old one, I have a lot work cut out for me so the next 27 days will be some of the hardest days of my life. A lot of training, a lot of mental and physical preparation. I’m not going to go lightly on myself. I want to give a WrestleMania performance and in order to do that I gotta be in tip-top shape so I’m gonna prepare like I did anytime else, the Olympics, the WWE Championship, this is my moment. We all have WrestleMania moments, this is going to be one of them so I have to make it last forever.

On who he could face at WrestleMania 35:

There are a lot names thrown in there. I mean from Cena, to AJ Styles, to Samoa Joe, to Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, so you never know who it’s going to be. I just hope that I do win and have a great WrestleMania moment.

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