Kurt Angle recently spoke with Alfred Konuwa of Forbes about various topics. Thanks to Konuwa for sending us the following highlights:
On Linda McMahon:
“She has done the business aspect of that company for all this time. She deserves that. If anybody is going to be able to represent the United States for small businesses, it’s Linda McMahon,” said Angle. “She has taken WWE from a semi-small company into a worldwide mecca. She singlehandedly did that. Vince was more the hands-on approach, as far as entertainment was concerned, but Linda McMahon deserves that job more than anybody and I’m so happy for her.”
On amateur wrestling vs. WWE:
“The issue with wrestlers going to wrestling, or sports entertainment, is you have to forget everything you learned if you wrestled for 20 years. It’s a tougher way because you have to include the crowd, you have to show emotion, you have to show anger, fear excitement which wrestlers never do. You go out there and you show no emotion, you just go out there and kill. In pro wrestling, you have to remember the whole match. If you have a 30-minute match, there are a lot of spots in there so it’s a lot tougher to transition. I would say any other sport than wrestling is a better avenue to get into sports entertainment than wrestling itself, but there are guys out there who have done a tremendous job especially after I have come through, you’ve got Brock Lesnar, you’ve have Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin, you have Jack Swagger you have Dolph Zggler, these are all guys who were former All-Americans in college. So there are former wrestlers making that transition but it is very, very tough.”
On John Cena being the G.O.A.T.
“John Cena is the man. I don’t know anybody else who has gone 13 years on top…I’m not going to say he’s was greatest athlete in WWE history, but he will go down as the greatest of all time in WWE history.
On his shortlist of potential inductors
“I would say Austin, Cena, Undertaker and Brock Lesnar are my four picks [to induct me into the Hall of Fame].”
Angle also discusses top outside promotions, how social media has affected fan culture and much more. You can read the entire interview here.
