Kurt Angle Opens up About 'Extreme Pain' He's in After Decades Spent Wrestling
Kurt Angle spent many years in WWE, which led to his body taking a beating. And because of that, [...]
Kurt Angle spent many years in WWE, which led to his body taking a beating. And because of that, he has to work on his body daily in order to not be in constant pain. Angle talked about that on The Kurt Angle Show, responding to a fan that asked him how his body is holding up.
"I'm in extreme pain all day long," Angle said, per Cageside Seats. "I do maintenance on my body all day. I do my neck traction. I have a thing called the Iron Neck, where it trains your neck. I have anti-gravity machine rollers. I stretch. I do a lot of weight training. I work on my body a good 2-3 hours a day. I have to. I'm so banged up now. I sacrificed a lot of my body in professional wrestling, and amateur wrestling.
"I have to blame both sports, not just one. I'm paying for it now, but I'm managing it. I had a painkiller problem, and I kicked that eight years ago. Not having painkillers anymore is really difficult, but I'm never going back to those, nor do I want to. I'm going to keep doing my body maintenance training, and doing what I'm doing right now."
As Angle mentioned, he spent years as an amateur wrestler before joining the professional wrestling ranks. He won a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta for freestyle wrestling. Angle, 52, won a gold medal at the 1995 World Championships, which was also in Atlanta. He then moved over to WWE in 1998 and quickly became a star. During his time in WWE, Angle won the WWE Championship four times, the World Heavyweight Championship once, the WCW Championship once and other titles leading him to become the fifth grand slam champion in WWE history. He officially from pro wrestling in 2019.
"It was really tough for me to come to that decision," Angle said in March 2019, per Sportskeeda. "It actually has been nipping at me for the past year. I'm 50 years old. I know I'm not the same as I used to be. I'm slower in the ring, I can still get the job done, but if I can't perform at the Kurt Angle of 2006, I don't want to perform at all."