Kurt Angle was on Carl Frampton and Chris Lloyd’s TKO show to talk about Olympic gold, stardom, the Foxcatcher movie, training and much more.
Among many topics, Kurt talked about the early days of his amateur wrestling training and how it felt to bump in a pro wrestling ring for the first time.
He said, “And my the neck, the pain I was getting in my neck and back it was like ‘This isn’t normal.’ It’s like self-abuse…”
Kurt said he got used to the bumping and his body got used to the pain but he is paying for it now.
He also spoke about competing in the 1996 Olympic games with a broken neck. Kurt said, “I couldn’t get passed by any doctor. No doctor would pass me or would allow me to wrestle. So I eventually found a doctor and he said, the only thing you can do, you can’t train so we’ll just stick you in the neck with Novocain. Every match I had at trials and the Olympics I got 12 shots of Novocain in the back of my neck. I couldn’t feel it for about an hour. I go out and wrestle and then an hour later I’d be in a lot of pain.”
Kurt was asked if he would do everything over again. He said, “I don’t know. I mean, I’m hurting pretty badly. My knees, my back, my neck. Sometimes I think about would I go back? My quality of life right now sucks. So, I do have a lot of suffering. I had a painkiller addiction that I overcame about 6 years ago. You know, staying clean and struggling the way I have been, it’s very difficult.”
You can watch the entire interview below.
