TNA wrestler Kurt Angle speaks on his health, retirement and more
Kurt Angle
Below are some of the highlights of an interview TNA superstar Kurt Angle gave to 105.9 The X in Pittsburgh.
On how taking Impact on the road has benefited TNA : “Well Impact needed to do it to take the next step and become a bigger company. We needed a fresh crowd. We needed a different crowd every week. Going down to Orlando at Universal Studios got stale. You only had about 1000 people in the studio, usually the same people. Sometimes you had people from the UK that came or South America, but all in all it became very stale and it was really hard to get motivated down there. Now, going to these new venues and bigger venues and bigger cities and traveling abroad like the WWE does, we’ve found a lot of success in the last few TV’s that we’ve had.”
On whether he enjoys coming home to Pittsburgh to wrestle: “Yes, sir I love being here in Pittsburgh and I consider Indiana, PA as part of western Pennsylvania. So, this is my big homecoming and I’m really excited for myself and also the guys are excited to put on a great show for the fans.”
On whether he feels that it should be him wrestling Aces & Eights: “I have had talks with creative and we’ve been going back and forth. I’ve been the staple of the company for the past five years until I’d say probably last year. I believe they’ve been trying to use the younger talent. I love Terry [Hulk Hogan] but it is about bringing up the younger talent and the way to do it is by having them wrestle veterans like myself in the main event. So, hopefully in the future they’ll start doing that more often.”
On his present health conditions: “I’m in great shape right now. I’m 100% healthy. I feel great. I look even better now. That stint when I tried out for the Olympics, I kept getting injured and I had to lose a bunch of weight to get down to the weight class and I believe that was probably the beginning of my demise in TNA as far as where they wanted me. They were expecting me to try out for the Olympics, to go to the Olympics, so they kind of wrote me off and then they didn’t have a whole lot for me to write about.
“I said, hey, it’s over. What are we going to do now? And they said, no, we got plans for you. So they were going to start writing me back in, so we’ll see here in the future.”
On how he attained his top notch promo ability: “Vince McMahon threw me in the fire and said listen, you’re either going to burn or you’re not. Go out there and do it. My first promo he said it to me. He didn’t give me a piece of paper. He said go out here and say this, this, this and this for five straight minutes. When he was done, I was like, I don’t even know what he just said, but he wants me to go out and do it. Thank God I went out there and I nailed it. He [McMahon] said I got a ringer. I got a great wrestler that knows how to talk and he has a great gimmick with the Olympic gold medal. That’s where it all began. From then on it just worked. I don’t know why. I don’t know I couldn’t do sports casting. I know I wasn’t quite prepared for it. But I wasn’t that prepared for the pro wrestling either, so I don’t know why [he was a natural at it].”
On the time he would like to retire: “I want to wrestle probably three more years. I love it in TNA. I’ve been very happy here. They’ve treated me very well, but you just never know. They way I want to retire, I want to go out with a bang and I’m hoping to God within the next three years that we can have somewhat of a pay per view that’s minutely close to Wrestlemania, but we don’t. Not yet. Everybody always wants to retire at Wrestlemania so it’s a hard thing because I want to stay in TNA. I love it there, but when you have the opportunity to go back and perform in front of millions of people on pay per view and a hundred thousand fans in the stadium, it’s kind of hard not to. But like I said, I am happy with TNA and this is where I want to stay.”
On how he got the better of Brock Lesnar in an actual wrestling match, before a WWE show once: “Definitely. Let’s remember it was wrestling. A lot of people say oh, you couldn’t beat him in an MMA fight. Well, it wasn’t fighting. It was wrestling. I was a much better wrestler than Brock. He was big, strong, quick, smart, but his technique was a little more simplified. I was a much better technician. I beat him by technique. He weighed about 320 at the time. I was about 215 and I was giving up over 100 pounds. I had a fun time schooling Brock in front of the wrestlers. It was pretty cool.”
On whether he considers himself as one of the greats: “I can never consider myself one of the best ever. 14 years [the length of his pro wrestling career]. You see Ric Flair, 30 something years. Same with Terry Funk and even Bret Hart, 30 years. Shawn Michaels, 28 years. Triple H, probably 25 plus. For the past five or six years they’ve been saying that [he's one of the all time greats] and I’m like guys, I’ve only done it for seven years so far, how good can I be? I can’t be compared to guys that have that longevity. I take it as a compliment, but I don’t really believe I am.”