Chris Van Vliet has a new interview up with Olympic Gold Medalist/WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle. We have a few highlights below. Scroll down to watch the entire video.
Kurt Angle on if there’s a chance he can get back in the ring:
“I wish. You know what? My quality of life right now isn’t so good. I had my knees replaced about a year ago. I had back surgery about four months ago. I have to have my shoulder replaced. I still have another neck, the same surgery coming up. That will be my fourth neck surgery. I really paid the price wrestling as long as I did. I wrestled amateur wrestling for 20 years and then pro for 20, and looking back, sometimes I regret, maybe I should have retired five years earlier because, you know, it comes to a point in time in your life where you’re older and you want to play with your kids and here I am having these surgeries. I can’t really do anything with them. I can’t pick them up. I can’t play with them. I can’t run with them. So it’s a little disgruntling that I’m not able to be the father that I want to be. What I’m doing now is I’m having knee surgeries to have a better quality of life so I can play with them and I just want to make it fast because these kids are growing up quickly and I don’t want to miss it.”
If he is in pain every day:
“Every day, every day, my back, my shoulder. My knees are good. My knees feel great. They recovered really well. I’m 100% with my knees, but my neck and my back and my shoulder. I have a lot of pain running all day long, all night. So it’s something I just have to deal with until I have these surgeries and until I recuperate.”
Thoughts on Gable Steveson:
“First of all, he’s an incredible athlete. You know, he is not only incredible on the mat wrestling, I mean, this kid, you know, he can do backflips. He’s really athletic, super athletic and I think he’s gonna have a great future. I just don’t know how entertaining he’s gonna be. I know that he loves to talk. A lot of his friends that I talked to say he’s kind of a loudmouth, which is kind of good because you want to be able to, you don’t want to be shy when you’re in this. You know, I was a shy kid, and when I went to WWE, I had to learn how to suck it up and just go out there and put everything on the line and it was really a hard transition for me. But I think Gable Stevenson will have the same thing. He’ll probably, you know, have to, you know, break that mold of being an amateur wrestler, because as an amateur wrestler, you show no emotion. You go out there and you focus and you wrestle. It’s not like pro wrestling where we have to show the people emotion. You have to show if you’re scared, or if you’re mad, if you’re, you know, excited. So there’s a lot. You have to have incredible charisma and I think that Gable has that. I just don’t know how well he’s going to translate that when he starts talking. I do remember doing a pre-tape with him in Pittsburgh and he did all right. You know, he didn’t do incredibly well, but he did well, that was like, Okay, this kid, he has potential. I think he’s going to be pretty good and so I expect him to have a great career. I don’t know if he’s going to have the career I had, but I think he could, definitely.”
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. Also, be sure to subscribe to “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” on your mobile device by clicking here if you have an iOS device or here on your Android device.
