Kurt Angle recently appeared on Chris Van Vliet’s INSIGHT, where he discussed his complicated feelings about Chris Benoit. WWE has prohibited any mention of Benoit following the tragic double murder-suicide of his wife Nancy and son Daniel.
Angle admitted to initially complying with WWE’s directive, stating, “I did it for a while. I did what I was told to do, was to pretend Benoit didn’t exist.” However, he realized this was detrimental to his own legacy, explaining, “But what that did for me is it took away all my best matches. It was rubbing on my legacy. So by saying that Chris Benoit no longer exists, is saying I never had those matches, and it’s like, Whoa, I have my best matches with that guy, and he was an incredible wrestler.”
Despite acknowledging the horrific nature of Benoit’s actions, Angle still respects his in-ring abilities. “I don’t condone what he did. What he did was 100% wrong. It’s unforgivable, but how he was in the ring. He was the best in-ring worker I’ve ever been in the ring with. He reminded me of me. I felt like I was wrestling my twin.”
Angle attributed their exceptional matches to their shared intensity. “Chris, nobody more intense than him, except for me. We brought it, and we would stay on each other. We had incredible chemistry where we were able to do finished trade-offs and submission trade-offs like nobody else. I mean, nobody compared to us. We would go from the ankle lock to the crippling crossface, back to the ankle lock to the Angle slam. We had all these different spots in the match that really made it really, really good. I believe that Chris and I might have had the greatest wrestling match of all time at Royal Rumble 2003. That’s how confident I feel about it. If no one’s ever seen it, you got to watch the match. I mean, we barely threw any punches, a couple of kicks. It was all wrestling, and that’s really difficult to do, especially today.”
When asked about his greatest rivals, Angle named Benoit and Brock Lesnar. “Him and Brock Lesnar. I also love wrestling Shawn Michaels. We only wrestled three or four times. It wasn’t like a big program, but Benoit and I, we went for years. It would be him and me, and then they would take a break from it, and then they go back to him and me and take a break. Then it’d be him and me tagging together when we’d be tagging and fighting each other while we were tagging. We just had a really strong program, and it went on for years. But Brock, our program went on for about two and a half, three years, and that was a good run.”
Click below for the full interview.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
