Kurt Angle and Cody Rhodes recently spoke with Justin Barrasso for Sports Illustrated Extra Mustard‘s Week In Wrestling. The two spoke about facing each other at Northeast Wrestling’s upcoming event, which will be Kurt’s final independent circuit match. You can read a few highlights below:
Kurt comments on the media attention his series of matches with Cody Rhodes has received:
“You usually don’t get this kind of attention for an independent match, but Cody and I have received a lot of attention for setting up our own program. That’s all because of Cody’s resilience. He didn’t let it rest, he kept coming up with ideas and concepts. Cody is a highly-driven individual, he has a lot of goals, and they exceed where he was in WWE. The way he’s promoted himself post-WWE has been nothing short of incredible. He makes everything mean something, and not just in the ring, but as an individual.”
Kurt comments on Cody’s level of talent:
“Cody can do it all. I always had my eye on him. I just can’t believe what he can do at his size. He’s deceivingly big—the kid has got to be 6’2”, probably 230 pounds, and he can wrestle like a heavyweight and move around like a cruiserweight. Seeing him do the springboard jump off the ropes, and moonsault off the cage, he is just so diverse as a talent. I always wanted to work with him, and I wanted to have at least one match with him. He was one of the top five guys in WWE that I had my eyes on to work with, and we were able to set this up as a best-of-three, and I’m very fortunate to be able to work with him.”
Cody talks about the reactions he’s been getting recently, how he might try to gameplan for facing Kurt one more time:
“I can’t put my game plan out there now. I’ll do my damnedest to honor the series we’ve had. You’ll notice that sometimes ‘The American Nightmare’ gets booed out of the building, like at Ring of Honor, most recently in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, but you’ll also notice certain places where that isn’t the case. The two matches with Kurt have been wrestling celebrations. I’ll try to honor the pure wrestling that comes with Kurt Angle, but it is a steel cage, it is Northeast Wrestling’s biggest show of the year, so you never know. I’ll be ready to pull out all the stops, and maybe all the tricks, this Friday against Kurt Angle.”
Kurt talks about this being his final match on the independents:
“This will be my last match on the independents. The opportunity was great, and wrestling is very strong right now. There are so many fans out there hurting and itching to see wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, especially if they really love an individual and they will show their loyalty regardless if it’s for a company or an independent.”
