Kurt Angle grew up a high school football and wrestling star in Western Pennsylvania who dreamed of playing linebacker or safety for Pitt or Penn State. Angle even had a tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers after winning an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling in 1996. But while the Steelers play the Chargers on Monday Night Football tonight, Angle will be starring on the WWE's Monday Night RAW.
Do you keep in touch with people from USA Wrestling?
Oh yeah, I keep in touch with those guys, I try to promote Olympic wrestling as much as possible. Half the reason I joined WWE was to expose amateur wrestling. Every time I walk out to the ring, everybody knows who I am and where I came from. You can't get any better exposure than that. It's been a win-win situation for everybody, even though USA Wrestling was a little bit tentative about me joining, because they thought I was selling out. I'm in sports entertainment now, I'm not in real wrestling, but I'm exposing amateur wrestling to every single kid out there that wants to be Kurt Angle, and there's a bunch of 'em.
So has USA Wrestling come around?
They've changed their mind, they said, 'Holy smokes, this kid is actually good.' I'm not only one of the best amateur wrestlers of all time, I'm very entertaining as well. They never saw that in me because as an amateur wrestler you're trained to show no emotion, like a robot, like Ivan Drago from Rocky IV. Go, do your job, win, raise your hand and walk off the mat. And I'm not like that. I'm an emotional person.
Did you ever bust out the "Angle Slam" during a football game?
No. I was actually a better football player than I was a wrestler, but I liked the one-on-one attention with wrestling, that's what really got me. I was known for hitting the hell out of people and hurting people. I'd walk by my coaches and say, 'If Ohio State stops by just tell 'em I'm in room 411.' I'd be real arrogant about it.
Where'd you get offered scholarships?
Pitt offered me then backed out, I was really upset about that. West Virginia recruited me very hard, so did Penn State. Joe Paterno said I was too short, it made me very upset. In football they have this safety valve; pick the prototype player, 6-5, 240 pounds. If he pans out, great. If he doesn't pan out, you say, 'Hey, he was 6-5, 240 pounds, runs a 4.6 40, how could you go wrong? He's just a [wimp].' That's where football is going wrong. They don't get the smaller guys with heart. If they did that, they'd get a lot more guys with a lot bigger hearts, like me.
So have you followed Brock Lesnar's attempts to make it in football?
Oh yeah. Honestly, I thought Brock would make it. I thought Brock had the ability to be a tremendous football player. I have a lot of respect for Mike Tice, but I think he's a moron for not picking Brock. He is so agile, so quick, so smart. It doesn't matter about all these little techniques, he could pick that up. He's been a wrestler his whole life technique in football is [nothing] compared to technique in wrestling. If Mike Tice had any brains in his head he'd have signed Brock Lesnar and he'd be starting this year. As far as Brock leaving our company, I have no respect for that. Brock quit on us and I don't have any respect for Brock for doing that.
The moments before a SummerSlam or WrestleMania, does that feel anything like getting ready for a football game?
