The Huffington Post’s Royal Ramblings blog has released part two of their interview with TNA World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle. Below are some of the highlights.
On how he is holding up physically: “I’m fine. I’ve adapted. It’s a tough schedule. Even though I have been reduced to a certain amount of dates a year, it’s hard. When you’re a world heavyweight champion, you’re in demand to wrestle almost every single week on TV. And the way that we structure our TVs right now, there’s a possibility of Kurt Angle wrestling eight main event matches in four days. That’s hard on the body. Especially at my age and at this point in my career. I believe at the last sets of TVs, I did seven matches in four days and I was hurting for a few days. I think anybody would. However I do have the ability to have five or six weeks off when I don’t have to wrestle. So there’s a give and take but I rather enjoy it. The challenges of wrestling guys like Eric Young to Bobby Roode to Austin Aries, Spud, Bobby Lashley… it’s been very challenging but I’ve had a lot of fun.”
On if we’ll see him in the WWE Hall Of Fame: “I don’t know. You never know what they’re thinking. It would be nice. Would it kill me if I wasn’t? No. I know who I am and I know what I was and I know the impact I made on wrestling. I don’t need a WWE Hall of Fame to tell me what that is. It’s not that important to me. What’s important to me is I’m in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for Olympic wrestling and that’s my legacy. But it’s always nice to be recognised as a Hall of Famer. TNA Hall of Fame was great. WWE Hall of Fame would be great but if they decide not to, its not going to kill me. That’s their option. I did leave them in 2006 and went to TNA and I don’t know if that has any bearing but I’ve been happy with my career. I can tell you nobody made as much noise as I did, the six years I spent in WWE. Nobody did that in that short a period of time like I did. That legacy will be set in stone forever. I will tell you I had a better career in TNA than in WWE and that’s scary. Im very grateful for that and at the same time it kind of sucks because the hardcore WWE fans that only watch that, won’t see my best matches. They think they saw my best matches in WWE but they haven’t seen TNA. I’m hoping more of them will turn on to it.”
On Jack Swagger using his Ankle Lock as a finisher and if it upset him: “You know what, no. Because I didn’t come up with the Ankle Lock. Ken Shamrock did. When he retired, I took it. And when I left WWE, Jack Swagger decided to take the Ankle Lock. And I’m sure it wasn’t his idea. Someone went over and said “Hey, Kurt Angle wants to leave, we’re going to replace him with this guy”. And I think Jack Swagger’s done a great job. I think he’s a great talent. Is he a Kurt Angle? No, no I don’t think he is but I think he’s very good. I have a lot of respect for him, I think he’s done a great job. I don’t have any problem with him doing the Ankle Lock; I might have tweeted it five or six years ago, like “Hey! He stole my move” but it was meant in more of a jokey sense. He’s a great talent and I like watching him wrestle. He’s a big boy too!”
Check out the complete interview at HuffingtonPost.co.uk.
