kurt angle
(Photo by Michael Tran/FilmMagic)

Kurt Angle on How Quickly Him & Brock Learned the Business, What Vince Told Him His Character Would Be, Who Helped Him Add Humor, More

kurt angle
(Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)

 

WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle was today’s guest on the ‘Talk is Jericho’ podcast. You can listen to the entire interview at this link. Below are a few of the highlights:

On How Quickly Him and Brock Lesnar Started in WWE:

It was tough. From the day I started to the day I began on TV it was all within a year of training. I know Brock [Lesnar] had two and a half years after that, but when he came in they put the title on him right away. I think we both caught on fairly quickly. I don’t know if it was Vince[McMahon] or whoever, they put us with the right people. You couldn’t go wrong with [Chris] Jericho, [Chris] Benoit and Eddie [Guerrero] to my first programs and matches. We were with the right people; even Undertaker would just tell us to listen to him and we’d say okay, what’s next? Everybody was like, ‘Kurt Angle is so good,’ but no I’m not, I’m just a really good listener.

On Whether His Amateur Background Helped Him in WWE:

I don’t think it was the wrestling background, it was really hard when I started. I was having a hard time the first few days where they were telling me that I have to allow this guy to pick me up and slam me, I have to show emotion, I’m like, I’ve never shown emotion and I don’t give my body to people so your instincts tell you to not do this and you know, you’ve done amateur wrestling for 20 years where you go for the kill, there’s no storytelling, no showing the crowd emotion, no give and take, it’s all take, take, take, but I just said, you know, you have to forget everything that you learned and start over again. I’ve always been a kid with a big imagination. I pretended to be a basketball player, I pretended to be in the NBA Finals or the Superbowl. I have a big imagination, and I think that helps in our sport in WWE and what we do in professional wrestling you have to have a big imagination, you have to come up with ideas and characters and finishes where people go wow! So, I have always been intrigued by that.

On Learning to Add Humor To His Character:

I don’t know if I knew I could do anything funny. I was never funny as a kid. Brian [Gewirtz] was really good with that stuff. He would tell me to try this and that we were going to do something funny with me. I asked how, and he gave me ideas to try it and I just went out there and did it and it worked. Usually for the most part fans were annoyed by me, but I’d rather have fans appreciate and hate me than not care about me at all.

On What Vince Told Him His Character Was Going to Be:

What Vince explained to me, he had this planned ahead of time. He said that we are going to force you down their throats and make you seem like you are a babyface, but you are going to be a guy that is so perfect the fans are going to be annoyed by you. I said that it wasn’t going to happen and that I was an Olympic Gold Medalist, the United States of America. I’m going to be touring all these cities and he told me to trust him, they will hate me. I think he tried to do it with The Rock, with some sort of character like that, but it backfired on him and that he knew it would backfire again, so we’re going to do this the right way this time.

On His Debut Match Against Shawn Stasiak:

I just started and I’m nervous as hell, all of a sudden the Ref tells me, ‘Angle, Vince told me to tell you to bump Stasiak, get out of the ring, pick up the Mic and tell all these people to not boo an Olympic Gold Medalist.’ I go, are you serious? He goes, listen, I’m going to say this one more time, so I went out there and did it. Whether or not Vince knew it, the fans were chanting boring because nobody knew..they knew I won a Gold Medal, but that doesn’t stand in this business. Nobody cared about Shawn or me, it was a boring match so they didn’t care who won or lost. There was no emotional investment in the match.

On Getting Booed in His Hometown Pittsburgh:

The next night, we were in my hometown. This is what you are going to say and that they are going to be pre-conditioned to hate you. I said, hold on Vince, this is Pittsburgh, this is where I’m from, nobody is going to hate me. He just gave me that look for two minutes where he’s basically telling me to shut up. He just said to say this; he talked for about five minutes and I didn’t listen to a word he said, and when he got done, I said, Vince I didn’t hear a word you said, could you repeat it? He was pissed and said that I am going to say it one more time. I was just nervous so I couldn’t pay attention and he kept talking. I remembered the first thirty seconds but man, this is a long promo. It was before TV started, he wanted me to come out and precondition the crowd. So, he went and said it again and for some reason, I remembered most of it and I think that night he said that this guy is going to be okay because I did remember the whole promo. I went out and cut a five-minute promo and there he came to the conclusion that I think we have something here with this guy. It worked because the crowd was booing me.

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