WWE News: Hall Of Famer Says His ‘Quality Of Life Sucks’ Right Now, Questions Wrestling Career
WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle is widely recognized as one of the best sports entertainers to ever step into the squared circle, but his body has suffered as a result of repeatedly taking bumps for 20 years. As quoted by Sportskeeda, the Olympic gold medalist recently appeared on the TKO podcast for an interview about his career, during which he opened up about the current state of his health.
While most superstars tend to love the wrestling business — and Angle is no exception, given how many years of his life he dedicated to it — he admitted that he sometimes regrets putting himself through all of the physical wear and tear. The effects have damaged his body permanently, and he feels it on a daily basis.
“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.”
However, Angle suffered from an almost career-ending injury before he even became a sports entertainer. It’s been well documented how he competed at the 1996 Olympics with a broken neck, but according to Angle, he struggled to get medical clearance for the event.
“I couldn’t get passed by any doctor… so I eventually found a doctor and he said, the only thing you can do, well you can’t train. We’ll just stick you in the neck with Novocaine… Every match I had at trials and the Olympics I got 12 shots of Novocaine in the back of my neck.”
.@RealKurtAngle announces on #Raw that he has chosen @BaronCorbinWWE as his opponent for his farewell match at #WrestleMania! pic.twitter.com/0aFbvI6BLk
— WWE (@WWE) March 19, 2019
As documented by National Post, Angle again broke his neck four times between 2003 and 2004, though the injuries didn’t keep him sidelined for too long. He always chose the quickest route back to action, but that came at a cost to his health in the long run. The quick solutions ultimately caused the superstar to develop addiction problems in order to cope with the pain, and he remained prone to injuries throughout his career.
Angle retired from pro wrestling in 2019 in a losing effort against Baron Corbin at WrestleMania. Despite his health problems at the time, the former Olympian managed to perform at a high level until his final match, which is a testament to his ability and resilience.
These days he works as a backstage producer for WWE, which involves him passing his knowledge down to the next generation of superstars in this current era.
