Kurt Angle: It's hard to remember all of them. [laughs] There have been so many funny ones. The ones I did with Edge and Christian, and then, obviously the stuff I did with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I love doing funny promos like the ones I did wrestling Rey Mysterio. I told him something like "Rey Mysterio, you're a boy living in a man's world and I'm a man who likes to play with boys." I forget exactly how it went, but it was something like that where I stub my toe and get to go "I didn't mean that…what I meant was…" And then I go on to say something else perverted. That's the kind of stuff I love doing. It's a lot of fun being able to entertain the fans that way. That's the Kurt Angle the fans look forward to seeing. The past month or so, being the perverted guy with Booker T and Sharmell, I didn't enjoy that very much. That's what was called of me, so I did it, but I'm glad to be back on Raw right now.

IGN Sports: With your successful transition from amateur wrestling to sports entertainment, do you see more amateurs following your footsteps into the sport?

Kurt Angle: Yeah, and I'm glad to see Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, and of course Brock Lesnar was here for a little while. We have another guy, I think his name is Lashley, he's in OVW. I got him a tryout a couple of years ago and he's going to be coming in pretty soon. Rulon Gardner was interested, so he came in and did a little tryout. I think it's good for amateur wrestling. And I think that finally, amateur wrestling as a community, they always felt like they took a backseat to pro wrestling and they felt that in people's minds, pro wrestling was just the next step of amateur wrestling. They were out there trying to say pro wrestling was fake and they were real. But pro wrestling is not fake, it's sports entertainment. We go out there and we perform, and a lot of what we do out there is real, but we're not going to insult anyone's intelligence, there is a predetermined winner. It's just the fans don't know who it is, and that's what makes it so intriguing. Amateur wrestling finally realized that by entering professional wrestling, I wasn't taking the next step, I was taking another career path and I opened it up for other wrestlers to follow. Now we're seeing a lot more wrestlers getting involved, and I think one of these days, if we do it the right way, it'll be all amateur wrestlers. As long as they have the charisma and everything else…they obviously have the look. But if you bring your amateur wrestling techniques in and then learn the pro moves, it's a catapult. You go from Olympic wrestling into pro wrestling, and it's a very difficult transition, but if you make it, you can earn a great living while at the same time giving amateur wrestling a lot of exposure by being on TV every week. Fans know where you came from.

IGN Sports: The growth of Shelton Benjamin has been amazing to watch. Do you see him stepping up into main event status pretty soon, maybe even challenging you?

Kurt Angle: Oh yeah, I think that's the whole reason they brought me over to Raw. They see another Kurt Angle/Shawn Michaels match in Kurt Angle/Shelton Benjamin. I think Shelton needs to enhance his character a little bit, let his personality flow a little bit more to be a top tier guy. He hasn't been able to do that yet. He's starting to be a little more comfortable, but once he gets a feel for that microphone and he lets it loose, there's no telling how big he's going to be. He had a tremendous match against Shawn Michaels about a month ago, and he's always had top-notch matches, so I'm looking forward to working with Shelton. Not only are we going to have tremendous matches, but I think in a lot of ways I can help him. When you have a guy like Shelton, who I believe is the best pure athlete in the company, and he's learned the system so well, he's going to be a tremendous wrestler for years to come, no doubt about it.

IGN Sports: One thing that's funny about you, when you first came into WWE, people booed you like crazy, same thing with Rock. Now they boo you, but it's different. Now it's out of respect. When you first heard those initial boos, did you think that years later people would be talking about you as one of the best ever?

Kurt Angle: You know what, that was always my goal when I first started. I didn't get into it just to make money. Put it this way, a lot of the wrestlers in the company, I have to admit, are world class athletes. Not all of them, but a lot of them have the ability to stand out with their athleticism. But I told Vince from the very beginning that I wasn't just a normal pro wrestler. I'm an Olympic gold medalist. My goal is to be number one and I'm going to keep going until I am. I'm going to earn my stripes, I'll go as long as it takes, but I'm not going to settle for second best. I don't care if Triple H is on the card or The Rock or Stone Cold, eventually I was going to prove to Vince that I deserved to be the top guy. And if it weren't for my neck injuries, I believe I would be right now. I'd be the franchise. But my neck injuries set me back about a year and a half to two years, and that also lowered Vince's confidence in me because he didn't know if I'd be healthy from one week to the other. Now that I've proven that I can go a full year, full time without hurting my neck, without getting injured, knock on wood, I think that's why he traded me to Raw. He wanted to give me a fresh beginning. He noticed that I wasn't having any problems with my neck anymore, and it looks like I'm ready to go again. This is Round 2.

*Interview courtesy of ign.com. To see photos from this interview, please visit the gallery.*