Kurt Angle Says TNA Knockouts Division Was At The Forefront Of Women's Revolution

While Kurt Angle's strongest association will always be with WWE, his legacy in wrestling also has close ties to TNA/Impact Wrestling, where he spent the bulk of his active career wrestling from 2006 to 2016. Angle was able to compete against some of the best talent outside of WWE at the time, including AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, and saw plenty of other innovations that the promotion provided while attempting to compete against WWE.

But arguably the most important development in TNA that Angle witnessed was the development of the Knockouts Division, which began in earnest in 2007, shortly after Angle debuted in the promotion. On "The Kurt Angle Show," the WWE and Impact Hall of Famer praised the inaugural Knockouts Division and even went on to make some bold claims regarding its importance to women's wrestling, then and now.

"Our Knockouts Division was really good," Angle said. "We had a lot of talented girls. The Knockouts, they actually were the frontier of the women's division getting serious. Even more quicker than WWE did. The Knockouts is when everybody started taking women's wrestling seriously."

The Knockouts Division has only gotten stronger since Angle's heyday, as evident by the recent "Impact 1000" tapings that occurred in White Plains, New York. The event aired a special 10-women Knockouts Tag Team match featuring Knockouts of Impact's past and present, with Knockouts Champion Trinity, Jordynne Grace, Awesome Kong, Gail Kim, and Mickie James defeating Angelina Love, Deonna Purrazzo, Gisele Shaw, Savannah Evans, and Tasha Steelz.

If you use quotes in this article, please credit "The Kurt Angle Show" and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription