#2036 - Kurt Angle
2023-09-19 02:34:45
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We're up with the greatest pro wrestling fan in the history of the world, Tony Hinchcliffe, and the great and powerful Kurt Angle. It's an honor, sir. Thank you for being here, man.
Thanks for having me on, Joe.
Dude, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. What you did in the Olympics with a broken neck is just nothing short of insane.
Yeah.
How did you do that?
I didn't have a choice. I mean, what happened was I got thrown on my head in the first round of the Olympic trials.
Pull that microphone up close to you. There you go.
What happened was I got thrown on my head the first round of the Olympic trials, and I broke my neck, and I didn't know it, so I kept wrestling. My arms were numb, and my neck was in excruciating pain, and I wrestled through the semis and won, and then I had to go on to the finals and wrestle, and I won there. So I won the first round of the Olympic trials with my neck broken. I went home the next day, and I went to my doctor, and he took an MRI of my neck. He said, you have four broken vertebrae and two discs sticking directly under your spinal cord.
He said, you can't wrestle anymore. You're done. I was devastated, man. I didn't know what to do. I figured I better get a second opinion.
So I went to another doctor, and he said basically the same thing, but he said, when is the next round of the trials? I said, six weeks. He said, you know what? I might be able to get you ready by then. I said, what's your plan?
He said, well, you're not going to be able to train much. You're going to have to let your neck rest and heal for the next six weeks, and it won't be completely healed, but it'll be healed enough that you can still go, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a doctor travel with you, and this doctor's going to stick you with 12 shots of Novocaine in your neck five minutes before each one of your matches. He said, therefore, you won't feel the pain. You'll forget, your neck is broken, and you'll wrestle more freely. But he said, I'm warning you, an hour after your matches are over, you're going to be in excruciating pain from the abuse your neck takes during those matches.
And he said, are you okay with this? And I said, yes, and it worked.
What a decision to make.
Yeah. I didn't have a choice. I mean, there was no guarantee I was going to make the Olympic team in 2000 or 2004.. This is my one time. This is my one shot.
Imagine those guys you beat, realizing a guy with a fucking broken neck just kicked my ass.
I never thought about that.
Not only did he beat me, not only did he win, he won with a broken neck. Amazing.
Yeah. So I went to the Olympics, and we did the same thing there. Wow. And I was able to get through it, and that's when I retired. And I retired for a few years, and that was that.
Did it heal up 100% or has it always been fucking with you since then?
I always had problems with it, you know, especially my motor skills and my hands. I broke my neck four more times in the WWE, and it got worse and worse. I mean, I have nerve damage in my neck. I lost three inches in both arms, and they atrophied because my neck was just so messed up. And I've had five surgeries, and none of them have really worked.
I'm going to end up having to have fusion, which will be down the line.
Have you done stem cells?
I tried. It didn't work.
It didn't do it? Where'd you go?
I went to South America. I forget which country. I can't remember. Colombia. Yeah.
Colombia, yeah.
Did you go to bioxcellerator?
Did you go to that place? Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
A lot of athletes, a lot of fighters go down there.
Yeah, it didn't work for me, unfortunately. Really?
Just so much damage, huh?
Yeah, yeah, just too much.
I wonder if you just kept going. Whew. So what's the extent of it now?
You know what? I can't feel my pinky fingers. I have a lot of atrophy in my arms. I don't have a lot of strength. I can curl for like 20-pound dumbbells.
When I do triceps, I can only push the weights about 60 pounds forward. It's just. I don't have a lot of strength in my upper body. And so the thing is, all right, if you look at my chest right here, you'll see there's a dip here.
Yeah.
That's from my neck. That's a nerve that died. I no longer have this muscle in my chest. I have a complete ripple through my chest. Wow.
It'll never come back. And I'm afraid it's going to happen again, so I'm going to have to have fusion sooner than later, because if I don't, the damage is going to get worse and worse, and then my arms are going to end up just shrinking to nothing.
Have you looked into replacement discs?
No, but you know what? I just got an email from a doctor in New York, and he told me he was doing it. And so I'm going to call him in this next couple weeks to see if we can set up an appointment.
Aljermaine Sterling, the former UFC Bantamweight champion, he injured his neck really badly and then got fouled in a title fight. Actually, it was very controversial because Pyotr Ion, the Russian cat who hit him with a knee to the head while he was down, lost his title that way. So he lost his title because, even though Aljermaine's a sensational fighter, everybody was giving him shit because he won the title because of that. So then he goes and gets a disc replaced in his neck, defends the title, and dominates Pyotr Ion in the rematch, beats him in the rematch, and then goes on to defend the title a couple more times and then just lost it to Sugar Sean O'Malley. But he's got an artificial disc in his neck.
It worked extremely well for him.
It worked, and he's good. He's good to go now.
I need to look into that.
Titanium. It's a titanium articulating disc. So, instead of fusing the disc, see if you can find it online, Jamie, articulating titanium disc replacement for spinal vertebrae. Cervical, I think. So.
Eddie Bravo has one in his lower back, too.
So they do lower backs, too.
Yeah, they do lower backs, and what they do is this is what it looks like. So, instead of fusing your discs, which the problem with fusing your vertebrae is, you no longer have any movement. With this, it allows you to have movement. And I think it lasts for a long fucking time.
You know what's crazy? I had a doctor when I broke my neck the second time. He wanted me to do fusion, and he told me that he's going to have to do three levels and that I'd have to retire. And I was like, oh, that might not be an option. It was the same doctor that Stone Cold, Steve Austin had.
And Steve still has problems to this day with the fusion.
Everybody I know that had fusion has real problems.
Yeah, see, that's why I'm nervous about getting it, and that's why I'm glad I found this doctor in New York City that can do it. I didn't know there was a doctor out there that could do that kind of stuff.
I'll connect you to Al Germain. We'll find out who he used, but his results are excellent. He went on to defend the title. I mean, in wrestling, he's a wrestler. So he got caught in neck cranks, guillotines, fought his way out of stuff with this artificial disc.
That's crazy that he's fighting with an artificial disc.
Fighting and winning against the best in the world.
That's ridiculous, man. Incredible.
And it seems like that was a pretty quick turnover because that rematch, there wasn't too much space in between.
Yeah, it was pretty quick. I mean, I think he was back fighting within eight months.
You know what? I was told that when you have that done, you literally are out of the hospital and you're working out like three days later. Yeah. It's like. it doesn't really dehabilitate you that much.
You're back to your normal life pretty quickly.
I think it might. I mean, I don't want to say. I'm obviously not a doctor. I don't know if you knew that. No, I didn't.
I don't know what the best options are, but it's an option, and I think it's probably a better option in some cases than fusion.
Oh, definitely. Too much metal in their neck, yeah. You lose your mobility in your neck, yes.
Have you ever seen Yoel Romero run? Yoel Romero got his neck fucked up in Cuba, and they just fused the whole thing. Oh, my. So his neck is like, so when he runs, see if you can find the video of Yoel Romero running.
His shoulders are up high.
Watch it. Look at him, run.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, so his neck doesn't move.
No mobility at all.
Zero mobility. Wow. And one of the best athletes that's ever competed in the UFC with a fused neck.
Oh, wow. There's no flexibility there.
Yeah, there's no movement. There's no movement. So the movement is all absorbed in the lower spine, and, you know, obviously has giant traps and huge muscles.
Would that give him spinal damage down the road?
I mean, who knows? I don't know, you know. But, you know, he had this done quite a while ago. This was when he was competing as an amateur wrestler.
Wow, that's incredible.
Yeah, and went on and fought for the title a couple times, was one of the best middleweights in the history of the UFC. He was an animal and just couldn't move his neck. That's crazy.
You're fighting and you can't even turn your head.
Yeah, the crazy thing is he could take a hell of a shot. And I've always wondered if one of the reasons why he takes a hell of a shot is that his neck doesn't move.
It doesn't snap.
Like it doesn't whip when he gets hit. You know, we've talked about this on the podcast so many times, but just the physical abuse that wrestlers take, both amateur wrestlers and then maybe even more so in the pro wrestling game. It's crazy.
You know what? I've been injured a lot in amateur wrestling, a lot. But nothing compares to pro wrestling. I've been so beaten up there. I barely was ever 100% healthy.
I would tear a hamstring or a groin or whatever. That'd be something small. And, you know, it would dehabilitate me a little bit, but I was still able to work around it. You learn as a pro wrestler how to work around injuries. I actually wrestled Brock Lesnar in WrestleMania XIX, the main event, with my neck broken.
I had to have surgery the following day. Yeah, so it's crazy. The pro wrestling is just ridiculous. You wrestle, you're on plywood. There's a cloth above it, but it's literally hard, like plywood.
You know, there's no spring under the ring, or it's not a box spring or a bed. It's plywood. That's what you bump on. That's so crazy.
Why do they do it that way?
I don't know, because it makes the sound. It makes a loud sound. That's why they don't care about the health of people. They just care about the sound it makes.
When you're one live, it doesn't really translate to TV as cool as it is live. You hear that pop, and they probably, I think they have microphones underneath and stuff.
Oh, they have microphones underneath.
That accelerate it through the speakers and like, boom, boom. It's very, very exciting. It's one of those things that's 1,000 times better live.
Isn't there a way? they can put a layer of wood and a layer of wood and then the foam. so the wood slams into the wood, but you feel the foam?
Well, if you do that, then they see your little feet pushing into the foam. Oh, yeah.
How are you going to run on it?
Yeah, I guess.
They're like, that's a bed.
I mean, not a foam like a bed. I mean, a foam like a wrestling mat, like something.
That might work. It's not a bad idea.
Better for the athletes.
Definitely.
You know, like a tumble track or something, like something that has some give to it.
Well, hopefully WWE's listening.
Well, the UFC and the WWE are together now.
Yes, they are.
Which is very interesting, very interesting.
Do you think they're going to cross them around?
I don't know. I think they're definitely going to cross promote. What I'm interested to see is, like, you know, obviously Brock was the most successful pro wrestler to ever compete in MMA, and CM Punk tried it. I'm going to be interested to see how many other guys. Bobby Lashley, did it.
How many other guys are going to try it?
When I look at that partnership, I see a lot of fighters crossing over to wrestling, but I don't see many wrestlers crossing over to fighting. I mean, that's a completely different beast. I don't think there are many wrestlers that could go in there and mix it up with those guys.
Well, that's what's so sensational about Brock.
It is. You know what? He's adapted to everything in his life. The kid is unbelievable. For his size, he's 310 pounds.
He's the best athlete I've ever been in a ring with. I mean, he's explosive. He's quick. He's fast. He's strong as hell.
I actually, I did wrestle him one time for real, and the thing was, what happened was, when he came up from training from OVW, someone went up to him and asked him how he'd do against Kurt Angle. He said, I'd kick his ass. So, okay, they're starting the pot. You know, they're getting shit rolling. So the guy comes to me and says, hey, Brock said he could beat you in a wrestle match.
So I went up to Brock and I said, hey, let's get in the ring right now. And he said, no, no, I have sandals on. I said, let's take our shoes off. I said, we'll go barefoot. He said, no.
So I let it go for the week. The following week, he was in the ring with Big Show, and they were wrestling for real. And Big Show was about 530 pounds. at the time. Brock was double-legging him, picking him up and slamming him.
I'm like, holy shit. I don't know if I could beat this guy, right? So Big Show was facing me. He was on the other side of Brock, and Brock's back was to me. And I said, Big Show, get out.
And he gets out, and I sneak up behind Brock, and I tap him on the shoulder, and I go, it's time to go. So we went, and we went for about 15 minutes. And, you know, the wrestlers tell you that I kicked his ass, that I dominated him. That's not true. I beat him, but I didn't beat him.
I took him down twice. He didn't take me down at all. I mean, it wasn't like a dominating performance. I did beat him, but, you know, he's the real deal. Oh, he's the real deal.
He really is, yeah. You know what? I'm surprised he didn't train for the Olympics. I really am. Yeah.
I wonder how he would have done.
I think he would have medaled. The athlete he is? Yeah.
Oh, he's an insane athlete. I'm sure you've seen his combine scores.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Crazy. You know what? He was the final cut for the Minnesota Vikings, and they wanted him to go to NFL Europe for a year because they had it back then. And Brock said, I don't want to travel.
And he said, I'll just do UFC. Like, you know, he's switching sport after sport. It doesn't matter to him. He knows he's going to be good at anything he does.
That's incredible. Yeah. You know, the video. we've talked about this so many times, video of him doing that front flip and landing on his head.
Oh, God. That would have killed. That was with me. Yeah, WrestleMania 19.. That's right.
That was with you. That video, that would have probably killed most people on Earth.
I thought he broke his neck. My neck was broken. My neck was broken, and Brock was supposed to win the title for me. And when he did this, I was like, oh, shit, I'm going to have to pin him.
I mean, that is insane. Right on his head. On plywood.
So I go and cover him, and I'm like, please kick out. Don't let me hold this title for another month. And he kicks out, and then I'm going to start talking to him here, and I'm going to say, Brock, are you okay? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, Brock, are you okay?
He said, I think so. And so I said, I'm going to pick you up. I want you to give me the F5.. Can you do it? He said, I think so.
Right here.
You're grabbing his neck. That's what's so crazy.
I know.
You're grabbing his neck, and he just landed on it.
You know what? He didn't hurt his neck at all. He got a concussion. He got a concussion.
He didn't hurt his neck? No.
No. He doesn't have a neck. That's so crazy.
It's so crazy that he came back from that.
Yeah.
So crazy that he came back from that.
And that was it. I was relieved. I got to drop the title and get my surgery the next day. Wow. I was supposed to win.
That wasn't supposed to happen. They wanted me to have a nice long title reign, but I broke my neck. Brock broke my neck the month before in a wrestling match. And so I went to the doctor. He said, you have to have surgery.
So I told Vince I'm not going to wrestle at WrestleMania. And I wasn't going to do it. And I was going to have surgery right away. And I went to my next-door neighbors. And this kid, he has Down syndrome.
Really nice kid. His name's Johnny. And he said, Kurt, I heard you're not wrestling at WrestleMania. And he gives me this magazine. It's DirecTV, and I'm on the cover with Brock.
He said, I really wish you would be able to wrestle. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to wrestle to lose the title to Brock on SmackDown. That's what Vince wanted me to do. He wanted Brock just to kick me in the gut, give me an F5 and beat me.
I said, I might as well just go to WrestleMania and tough it out. Go ahead and do it with a broken neck. Is it going to make it worse? If it does, it does. But back then there were no liabilities.
Now you can't do that stuff. There's no way the WWE is going to clear you to go out there with a broken neck and perform.
How did Brock break your neck the month before that?
I was on his back. I had him in a choke hold. I had him in a choke hold, and I was on his back. And he was on the other side of the ring. He's really strong.
And he could run really fast. So I'm on his back, and he starts running to the other side of the ring. And he goes to turn. So I hit the turnbuckle. Well, we only turned sideways, and my head whiplashed really fast.
And it snapped. I heard it snap, and I couldn't feel my arm. I couldn't raise my arm. You could tell in the match, when you watch it. My arm's down.
I couldn't raise it. My neck was in pain. I knew something was wrong. And so the next day I went to the doctor and got the MRI, and I broke my neck again. And so I decided that I was going to have the surgery, and then I actually put it off until after WrestleMania.
But what's crazy is, I broke my neck again. Brock broke my neck again. six months later. He hit me over the head with a chair like this, straight over top. You're supposed to bring it sideways, so you don't have the pressure of your neck, you know, your head going down your neck.
So he hit me straight over and broke my neck again. My vertebrae cracked. And so I was out again for about ‑‑ I had surgery again. I was out for about three months. I came back for WrestleMania, and I broke my neck again.
Oh, my God. Okay, so I was rushing back before my neck was completely healed. That's what happened. I broke my neck four times in two and a half years in WWE.
And what kind of surgery did they do?
A quick fix surgery. It's called a lapendectomy. They go in. They let the vertebrae heal. That's why you wait a couple months to let it heal.
But they go in, and they cut the disc, whatever's blocking the nerves or whatever's sticking to your spinal cord. They cut out part of the disc, and they leave the rest in there. So right now I have, like, a little bit of disc in, like, three different levels of my neck. And they're fusing together right now because I don't have enough disc. And that's why I need to get this rubber disc doctor.
I really do.
Well, I'll connect you to Aljamain.
Please do, man.
As quick as I can, as soon as we're done here. I wish I'd known about it before. It's such a dangerous area of your body to be injured.
It is. It is. It controls everything. You know, it controls your legs, too.
When they, do, they think that, so right now, is it pushing against something right now? Is that why you're getting the atrophy?
I have nerves that are being pinched, and they're not being able to flow down my arms. So that's, my fingers are freezing cold. They're always cold. Wow. I don't have any circulation.
My arms, I've lost, look, this shows you how much weight I, how much muscle I lost. Wow. This is all, this is all extra skin because of where the size of my arms used to be. And I'm just, I'm barely making it right now. I literally, you know, my arms are 15 inches.
now. They used to be 18, 19 inches. Wow. So it's, you know, I'm struggling right now.
It is the sheer volume that you guys have to do in terms of the amount of shows. It's just such an insane workload on your body. The punishment that you guys take. Yeah. The fact that you do it.
Like, how many nights, how many nights a year were you wrestling?
Well, we were probably going 260, 270.. I mean, there was a time in WWE where they were going 320.. It was ridiculous. They were going seven days a week and doing nine shows. So they would do five Monday through Friday.
And then they would do four on the weekend. They'd do a double shot on the weekends. That's how it was back in the 80s and 90s. But then around 2000 is when they changed it. They started having five shows a week.
So you had two days off. Usually one day was a travel day. So you really had one day off where you were at home.
And on top of all that, at your level, those are longer matches. You know, it's not even a normal thing. No, being the man at that level, yeah.
You're going to have a lot longer matches, yeah.
Like, those are 35 minutes or an hour or 50 minutes or 40 minutes of putting on the biggest show.
I know there was a time where people were talking to you about competing in MMA.
Yes. You know what? I've got this story wrong so many times. Dana and I have been on the opposite ends of the spectrum with this thing. But now I think I got it right.
Like, there were things I would leave out. But Dana treated me really well. I'm not going to lie to you. He offered me a couple of deals. The thing is, the second time, the first time I won't even talk about it, the second time, he wanted me to go on the show Ultimate Fighter with Kimbo Slice.
And I said, Dana, those guys don't get paid. They're on that show for free. I said, I need to get paid. He said, well, I'll give you a substantial amount of money. So he was going to pay me to be on the show.
But he said, if you win, you're going to get a six-fight deal. And if you lose, I'll probably still give you a six-fight deal because I think you're going to be really good. And he said, but I need you to take a physical. I said, okay, let's take the physical. Well, I took the physical and I didn't pass it.
So I'm glad I didn't, because my neck and all this stuff, I broke my neck five times up until this point when I went to see Dana. And I couldn't do five push-ups. And here I am. I want to fight with these world-class fighters. And my neck is, like, so messed up.
My arms, I can't do push-ups. I can't do anything. And I would have got my butt handed to me. I mean, I don't even – I might have been – I might have ended up getting paralyzed, to be honest with you. I was in no shape or condition to be able to compete with those guys.
And I was fooling myself, and I'm glad I fell on the physical, because I probably would have went through with it.
That's a different mentality. That is a different mentality. I mean, you want to talk about toughness? The toughness of pro wrestlers, the mentality that you have to have to be able to do 260-plus nights a year, that's insane.
Yeah, you know what? I wouldn't say you're a badass. I think that – well, you're a glutton for punishment. You're abusing yourself. That's what it is.
You're not beating up people. You're beating yourself up. That's what it is.
But you can do it over and over. Just the fact that you knew you had a broken neck going into that match with Brock, that's – who the fuck does that?
I don't know.
When you look back on it now, is there anything you would have changed?
Well, throughout my career, was there anything that I would change? Yeah. Well, we'll get into this topic, I guess. After I broke my neck the second time, the first time in WWE, I was introduced to painkillers.
When I started taking them, I really liked it. I mean, it masked the pain. I couldn't feel the pain. It kind of gave me an energetic feel. It didn't make me feel nauseous, like it does a lot of people.
And I started taking them. I was taking one every four to six hours, like I was told. But after a while, you build a tolerance. One doesn't work anymore. Then you have to take two, and two led to four, four led to eight.
Was this OxyContins? This was extra-strength Vicodin. OxyContins are a lot more powerful than Vicodin. But I was taking 65 extra-strength Vicodin a day. That's how out of control I got.
And I was hiding it from the company. And, I mean, I was in serious trouble.
And does that even make you high at that point? Does it just keep you from going into withdrawals?
It kept me from going through withdrawals, but there were times where I passed out. I mean, the company knew. Some of my friends knew. You know, I'll give you an example. There was one point.
This is how bad it got. There was one point in my career where my brother called me. I was at a house show, an un-televised show for WWE. It was the night before I was going to have the biggest match of my career with Brock Lesnar the next day. It was an Iron Man match on SmackDown.
And my brother calls me and says, Hey, your sister just died of a heroin overdose. And it crushed me. I mean, I was crying. I was in such pain thinking about my sister, who was only 40 years old, dying from a heroin overdose. And the thing is, I wasn't able to talk to her because I told her eight months prior, If she doesn't get clean, I'm not going to talk to you.
So I didn't talk to her for eight months. And then this happens.
So here I am, I'm in the hotel room. And I look at my pills. I said, fuck it. I took 20 of them, threw them in my mouth, chewed them up, and swallowed them. I didn't wake up until 5 o'clock in the afternoon the next day.
And I had the biggest match of my career that night.
So what time did you have to be to the arena? And did you do it?
Well, we had to be there at 1, but I didn't get there until 5.30.. But yeah, I ended up doing it. The WLB was trying to call me the whole time. They wanted to tell me that, hey, you can go home, plan a funeral for your sister, you don't have to do this match. But I kept thinking, I know my sister will want me to.
And I knew that I wouldn't have to feel that pain of losing my sister, at least for that hour. So I went ahead and did it. And it was actually one of my best performances of my career, which is kind of crazy. But that was a really rough time. The painkillers are the one thing that I do regret I did in the company.
I wish I was never introduced to them.
But do you think you had to take them? I mean, it sounds like you were in such excruciating pain all the time.
There were times I needed to take them, and there were times I didn't. But I was so far deep into it that I had to. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. I would go to sleep at night, I would have 15 pills sitting on the desk next to me for when I wake up. Because I knew I was going to have withdrawal.
when I got up. I'd wake up sweating, shaking, and I'd grab those, throw them in my mouth, chew them up, and swallow them.
15 at a time?
15 at a time.
Wow.
Most people, 15 at a time, will kill you.
Well, it didn't kill me. You know, I took 20 at one time when my sister died. So I've been really lucky. I've been blessed. Honestly, I don't think I should be here today.
How did you get off of them?
Okay. Well, what happened was I left the WWE because they wanted me to go to rehab. I didn't want to go. So I ended up going to another company called Impact Wrestling. And I got my painkiller problem under control there because I found a doctor that got me on MS-Contin.
There are two morphine pills. They're very tiny, but they'll keep you from going through withdrawal. So I would take one in the morning, one at night, and no more painkillers. They were painkillers because they were morphine, but they were high dose. It was just two of them that I had to take.
Well, I started having anxiety about breaking my neck over and over again, so they put me on Xanax. So now I'm taking Xanax. And then I switched to TNA, Impact Wrestling, and everybody drank there, so I started drinking alcohol. So I'm mixing, having these cocktails, and I'm so out of control that I'm driving, okay, from town to town, drinking a 12-pack of beer, and I got four DUIs in five years. I lost my reputation, everything I worked for.
I was at the lowest point in my life. And I remember calling my wife from jail after my fourth DUI, and she said, Listen, I can't do this anymore. You either go to rehab or I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving. So I went to rehab because I didn't want to lose my wife and my kids. And I was scared.
in rehab. I literally thought I was so nervous. First of all, the withdrawal was the worst experience I ever had. I'll never go through that again, because I'm never going to take another painkiller. That was the worst thing I've ever done, or drink another drop of alcohol.
That was the absolute worst thing I've ever been through. And I forget what I was going to say, though.
So with the rehab, how do they get you off of it? They don't do it cold turkey, right?
They do. Do they? Yes, they do. I thought they were going to wean me off. They put you in a room and let you sleep, and they check on you every couple hours.
How many days? About six days for me to go through the withdrawal symptoms. Oh, my God. It seemed like forever.
Six days, you just in a room by yourself. Yep. Just thinking.
Yeah. And you know what? And you want to stay in there. And they start forcing you out. You've got to come move around.
You've got to come out and talk to people. You've got to live your life. You're so exhausted. For the first two and a half weeks, I didn't want to move. I just wanted to stay in my bed.
But they were forcing me to get out of bed and conversating with people and trying to go and eat and go to meetings and do all that stuff you do in rehab. So it was really tough.
How long did it take before you felt normal?
Well, I would say two weeks where I really felt normal. But the thing is, the last two weeks, because I spent a month in rehab, the last two weeks I was so nervous that I was going to fuck up again. I literally didn't want to leave rehab. I was scared that I was going to go back to it right when I got out.
So many guys do.
It's so crazy. That's why. I hear all these stories. I'm like, oh, it's going to happen to you too, man.
But the one thing that I kept going across in my mind was going through withdrawal. I don't want to do that again. And I know if I start taking them, I'm going to have to experience that again. And I don't want to. It was that bad?
It was that bad.
What is it like? What is withdrawal feeling?
OK, you're sweating because you're hot and you're cold. at the same time. You're shitting your pants. You're throwing up. You can't think straight.
Your body's shaking. You're getting hot sweats, cold sweats. Everything's. you feel like you don't have anything inside of you. No insides.
No organs. Nothing. You feel like you're hollow. It's just the craziest thing. It's the most painful thing I've ever gone through.
And, you know, I'm sure people have been in a lot more pain than that with certain things they've had done to themselves. But for me, that was the worst.
What's crazy is when you think about how mentally strong you are, how difficult it is for you to go through that. Now, think of the average person. You know, have you seen that painkiller show on Netflix?
I watched some of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Fucking what they did to this country is so crazy.
Oh, I know. They're advertising it. Hey, this is the best drug since whatever. And, you know, this will keep you, you know, keep you moving every day and give you a healthy lifestyle. Meanwhile, they didn't tell you that they're opiates and they're addictive and that they could kill you.
Yeah. Yeah.
The one to start and the one to stay with. What was the slogan that they used, Jamie? Do you remember? We talked to Peter Berg, who made that show. And, you know, he had obviously had to do a lot of research on the Sackler family and what they did and how they engineered this, and how they knew that.
I mean, people weren't just taking painkillers back then. It wasn't a normal thing. Right. You know, like when I was a kid, we talked about this. When I was a kid, for someone to take heroin was crazy.
When you found out someone was taking heroin, you're like, Jesus Christ, Mike's taking heroin? Right. But when those pills came around, because it was prescribed by a doctor, everybody's like, it's fine.
It's okay. I thought it was, too. That, you know, this is legal. My doctor's giving it to me. This is what I need.
But I knew, you know, after I started taking more than four and I was taking five, six, seven, eight, I knew I wasn't doing the right thing. I knew that I was going against what the doctors wanted. Because you know what I would do? I literally, I had 12 doctors that I was calling. Oh.
So, and I had 12 different pharmacies, because you can't go to the same pharmacy twice in one month. Oh, my God. Okay. And I had a Mexican contact where I got them illegally. So, I was getting about 2,700 pills a month.
Oh, my God.
That is, you know what, that's all you think about. That's all you think about is how you're going to get your drug the next time. So, I have this calendar, and every day it tells me which doctor to contact or contact your Mexican contact down in Mexico. So, I have all these things set up so that I can get what I need. And it takes over your life.
Wow. You no longer live in your life. Your marriage is, you know, you're not worried about your marriage, your kids, your job, nothing. You're just worried about how you're going to get the drugs.
God.
So crazy. And it's so crazy that this didn't exist. This didn't exist in America until, what, a couple decades ago, when it started?
Now, who's the people that? The Sackler family. Okay. Are they affiliated with Purdue or? Yes.
Okay. Purdue Pharma. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the story from the documentary is sensational.
The series on Netflix is sensational. It just shows how fucking evil, evil those people are.
Well, I wonder if they actually knew the dangers that were involved when they first started.
It seems like they knew.
They did?
It seems like they knew a lot. They absolutely knew it was addictive. That's why the FDA wouldn't approve it. And then they took this guy. There was one guy from the FDA that approved it, and this guy would not approve it.
He was like, this is heroin. Like, I'm not going to approve this. Right. And then they took this guy, and they took him to a fucking hotel, and they had him in a hotel for two days. I don't know what they did.
Like, no one knows what they did in this hotel for two days. But after the two days, he came out, and instead of saying it's non-addictive, for the first time ever, they said it is believed to not be addictive. Wow.
They said the opposite.
Somebody said it. Like, somebody believes it. Do you believe it? Yeah, I don't think it's addictive. Okay, it's believed.
to not be addictive. I mean, to use that sort of terminology, you just need one person or someone.
Yeah, just approval for one person.
For one of the most dangerous drugs that this country's ever experienced.
It is the most dangerous drug, yeah.
You look at the amount of people that have died from it. I mean, somewhere, the opiate overdoses in America are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 a year, which is so crazy. So in 10 years, a million people died from this stuff. And who knows how many people committed suicide, who knows how many people died from car accidents, how many lives and families were wrecked.
Yeah, the pictures being affiliated with that, too.
Yeah, so many. And it's just insane. It's insane how much power money has, and that a pharmaceutical company could influence people in that way. And in this documentary they show, in the docu-series, they show how they did it.
And it's scary because a lot of those doctors, when they're younger or whatever, they're like, I want to help people. I want to make people feel better. I want to help humans. And then they're in the business a little bit, and they realize, well, if you want a vacation, or if you want a yacht, if you want this, you've got to play the game.
Also, you have liability insurance. You also have medical school bills. You have the cost of running your business. It becomes like the stock market. It becomes like anything else where you're just thinking about numbers.
You're not thinking about people. It's not your responsibility. And the crazy thing is then they would shame the people. when there was a strategy, they had to say, oh, you're a drug addict. It's not the pills are the problem.
You're a drug addict. You're an addict. And the people are like, oh, I'm a drug addict. No, they turn you into one. Everybody's a drug addict.
If you give them 20 fucking pills a day, they all become drug addicts. Every human being. Every human being. If you give them Oxycontin all day, they will become that.
Everybody has the ability to be addicted.
Oh, yeah. Everyone. I think everyone.
I had a wisdom tooth taken out like a decade ago. And this doctor was so nice. He was like a cool, smart guy. And he's like, I'm going to send you home with these 12, Vicodin, or whatever they were. And if you feel pain, take one or two of them.
You'll be great. And I started to feel pain like four or six hours after. I remember it was the day that the WWE Network came out. Because I got it. I'm like, this will be fun to watch.
Catch up on old stuff. Which it was. It was amazing when that debuted. But anyway. So I have that on.
Pain starts kicking in. And I take a half of one.
Just a half.
And 20 minutes later, I just start sweating and smiling like a super villain. I mean, I could not take the smile off of my face. I was just in glory. And immediately, I'm like, this is bad. And even though I had never been happier, my body was just an overall orgasm.
For the entire mind, body, all the way down to your toes. You see your fingertips are sweating with excitement. And I went and I flushed those other 9 1⁄2 or 11 1⁄2 pills down the toilet. I knew immediately. I'm like, this is trouble.
Good for you.
I mean, even if I would have taken the whole one, I probably could have changed my fucking entire life right then and there. Yeah.
Well, they weren't around when I got my first knee surgery. But when I got my first knee surgery when I was in the hospital, they had me on a morphine drip. And I remember lying in that hospital bed feeling so good. I was like, this is amazing. And I had an ACL reconstruction where they did the patella tendon graft.
Right? So, you know, they cut your knee open. They take a slice of your patella tendon. And then they screw it in where your ACL used to be. And then they have you on this constant motion machine while you're in the hospital bed.
So this thing is extending your knee and closing that. And then you had a button. And you hit the button and the morphine drips. And I'm just lying in bed. I should have been in agony.
And I'm like, wee.
No, wait a minute. There had to be a limitation to what you could.
Yeah, imagine. I don't know. I mean, we're talking 1993.. I don't know.
Oh, there might not have been.
That was my first one. And my second one, my second knee surgery I got was in, my second ACL reconstruction I got was in 2003,, I think. And maybe four. And that time I didn't take anything. I was like, I'm not taking shit.
Because I don't like the way those things make me feel. I don't like it. And I'm scared.
I like it too much.
Yeah, but I had friends in high school that were addicted to drugs. So I would, before I was 30 years old, all I did was drink. I would occasionally have, you know, I'd smoke pot maybe like six times until I was like 30 years old. And then, when I had surgery, I was like, I just associated pain pills and that stuff, with your life falling apart. Luckily.
Because I know how good it, but Peter Berg was talking about that. He took one recreationally. And he's like, this is amazing. He's like, oh, my God. I can never do that again.
Because it's fucking, because it's just too good. It's too good. And that's the problem. Too many people that get hooked on that stuff, the problem is their life is shit because they've been a drug addict. And then they get off of it.
And so they're super depressed because their life is terrible, because they wrecked their life. And the only thing that makes them feel good is the drugs.
You're absolutely right.
And no one can tell you any different. No one can fix you. You've got to kind of do it yourself. Your family can tell you. You've got to stop doing drugs.
You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you go buy some.
It's all you.
And it's wild. It only takes one charismatic, smart-sounding-seeming doctor. Because I've always avoided drugs as well.
And it was just one orthodontist that's like, yeah, no problem whatsoever. Just take one of these. You're going to be good. You have no worries. No problem.
They'll give them to you even if you're not in pain. That's what's crazy. I had a nose operation, a deviated septum fix. And my doctor prescribed me two different kinds of painkillers. And I was like, I'm not in pain.
And he's like, but you might be. I'm like, Jesus Christ. I'm like, I'm not feeling this.
He's pushing them on you.
Yeah, he was pushing them on me. He was telling me to take them.
These guys want to be one of the 12 doctors on a list. Well, if you get their kickback.
If you're supposed to like those numbers, you've got to keep those numbers coming in. They'll come to you, hey, buddy, what's going on?
So they actually do get paid?
Oh, yes. Wow. Yeah, there's some sort of kickbacks. And there's also bribes. And the bribes are in the form of vacations and dinners.
And my wife's nurse – my wife's mother, rather, was a nurse. And she would say that the pharmaceutical reps would come to the clinic, the hospital. And they would, like, take everybody to dinner. Come on, we're going to take you to dinner. They'd take them out to nice steak dinners.
And everybody would eat whatever you want, a nice bottle of wine. And so, like, they were on the side of these pharmaceutical drug companies. So when the patients would say, hey, what do you think about this stuff? They would go, oh, you should take it. It's very good.
It's very good. It's a good company. So it's just you build loyalty with these people. You know, Brigham from Ways to Well, Brigham started off his career – he's a good buddy of ours who now owns a stem cell clinic. Now he's into wellness and prescribes peptides.
Is he in the United States?
Yes, he's in Austin. And, you know, back then, when he was a pharmaceutical drug rep, it was all about relationships with the people. Like you would go to the kids' games. You would know all these people. You would know all the doctors and nurses.
You had to be on a first name. But you were their friend.
Right.
And so the more they liked you, the more likely they were to prescribe your drugs, the more they would give it out to people.
They were building trust.
Building trust. And in Painkiller, in the documentary, the Netflix series, they hire these really hot young girls that were the representatives that would go to the doctors and sell this stuff and bring the brochures. And they had a little spiel that they would sell.
It's crazy.
It's crazy what they did. I mean, they followed the law. Look, if you want to be an evil sociopath, it's really that – the way they did it was, that's the way to do it. And it's the most effective way to make a lot of money. They made billions.
And, you know, they didn't break the law, I guess.
Sort of. Kind of. But what's interesting now is because of the Netflix series, they were going to sign some sort of a deal where they give $6 billion and they were going to have immunity to prosecution. And a judge looked at it after the series and went, hold on. We're not signing off on this.
Like, we need to find out what the fuck is going on. Like, what did you guys do? Like, what did you do to the world? What did you do to the country?
So they're looking for more. More money.
Well, they're not just looking for more money. They're now talking about criminal prosecution. I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, it's like you would like people to be held responsible for it, but….
Unfortunately, they have so much money. they can pay the lawmakers. They can pay the Congress. They can do anything.
It's very weird. It's very weird that they allowed them to. I mean, it's evil. It's really evil. They ruined the lives of untold millions of people.
I don't know if I could ever do something like that.
Of course you couldn't.
Come up with something that I know people are going to get addicted to and lie to them.
I think it's one of those things where you become accustomed to it, because everyone like you is doing it. And it becomes part of what you do. You know, I think just people adapt to whatever environment they're in. And if your environment is in getting pills to people, that's your job. Your job is to get pills to people.
The pharmaceutical drug reps, they come to you.
That's all they're thinking of. I get my pills. Yeah.
That's what your job is. Your job is to do that. Your job is not to, like, help these people. There was one doctor in the series that was, like, an ethical doctor that kicked the lady out of his clinic. Look at the fuck.
out of here. You're selling heroin. It's an interesting scene because, like, that's rare, because most doctors are rule followers. You got to think, most doctors, they go to college. They get their medical degree.
They go to medical school. They do the residency. Everything is by the book. You got to do what they say to do. And then you work for a hospital, which I sound naive.
I was. I didn't even know that most hospitals are privately owned. Like, I didn't know that there were for-profit businesses that try to push medicine on people. I thought they're just here to help you. Like, wouldn't that be the best thing?
Like, if hospitals were just places where the doctors get paid well, because they're really good at their job, but what they're trying to do is make you better. No, those hospitals are trying to make as much money as possible. They want to keep you in as much as possible, prescribe as much medication as possible.
You know what? I'll give you an example of that. It's not really drug-related, but I went to a hospital. I had pneumonia, and they accidentally gave me the hospital bill of everything that they used on me. And all my, like, if I had, like, ginger ale, diet ginger ale.
It was a little six-ounce, those little ones. I had, like, 20 of them while I was there. They were charging $12 for each one of those. They had on the bill, like, the linen, what the linen costs and this and that. Linen was $200, just the bed sheets.
Like, I saw all this stuff on this bill. The bill ended up being, for five days, it was $165,000..
Wow.
How could you spend $165,000 just laying in a hospital bed? You know, they're serving you three meals a day. Yeah. I mean, $167,000.. It's ridiculous.
It's business. Yeah, that's what's crazy about business, right? In businesses, people just want to make the most money possible. It's crazy. It's fucking crazy when it's involving pills and people's health.
Yeah.
God.
So how many years have you been clean now?
Twelve. Twelve years. That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah.
That must be very nice.
Yeah, it's nice. You know, I don't have a lot of, thank God, I don't have a lot of triggers anymore. I used to when I had, because I was going through a lot of pain. And I had my knees replaced. I had my back surgery.
Wow. So I'm actually on the mend now. When did you have your knees replaced? I had my shoulder replaced, too. I had them replaced a year ago.
How'd that go? Really good. Really good. I was literally, the doctor, my doctor's really progressive. Like, he got me out of bed the day of surgery, had me walking around.
Wow. It was ridiculous.
Did you do one at a time or both at the same time?
Both at the same time.
Oh, my God. So you're walking around with two new knees?
I left the hospital without using anything. I walked out of the hospital the next day. Oh, geez. Yeah, and he wanted me to walk up the steps and down the steps. Wow.
It was crazy. I mean, it didn't take me long to recover, though. Probably four or five months. It usually takes a year, but I did it in probably four or five months.
Wow.
Yeah.
With no painkillers?
No painkillers.
Do you take CBD or anything like that?
I tried CBD. It doesn't really work on me.
I think the volume of pain you're dealing with is probably outside of CBD.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, is there a way to OD on CBD?
No, no, I don't believe so. It might be. I mean, it might be bad for you. as I look at a Kill Cliff with CBD in it. This is 25 milligrams.
This is nothing.
Yeah, CBD is for people that have mild arthritis and general discomfort and inflammation. It's not for what you were dealing with.
Right.
Shoulder replacements, knee replacements. Yeah. Disc replacements.
I have to have a – I can't wait to get my neck done. I mean, I need that number of that doctor, man. That's all I'm thinking about right now, Joe.
Yeah, well, as soon as we get out of here, I'll contact Al Joe and try to get that hooked up and find out. Because his is amazing. I mean, the fact that he was able to get that surgery – I believe Chris Weidman got the same surgery. I don't know if it's from the same doctor, but several guys in the UFC have gotten that surgery.
You know what? John Cena had it, too. Oh, yeah? I believe – but his was a rubber disc. Interesting.
Yeah. How long ago was this? Probably seven or eight years ago.
Hmm.
He had neck surgery. I believe he had a rubber disc put in his neck. Hmm. And I'm not so sure that's going to last as long as the other one that the doctor that does yours does.
Yeah. Yeah. That's. the scary thing is, they'll tell you, like, we'll replace something, whether it's a hip or whatever. But in 20 years, you're going to need a new one.
I know. I know. They told me to take care of your knees because they won't last forever.
What did they give you, like, a timeline?
15, 20.. But I told them, can I run on them? They said no, but I run on them.
Jesus!
Yeah.
You do a lot of cardio to make up for all the stuff that you can't do?
I do. I do. I run. I only run two miles two or three days a week because of my knees. Yeah.
I don't want to overdo it, because I know they'll probably go to shit in a year or two if I abuse them too much. So I do very little. I run a couple miles three days a week.
Not a lot. You know, as bad as the pharmaceutical drug companies are in pushing painkillers, thank God the medical, like, the technological side of it, of the medical community is developing. It is. Incredible replacements.
That's crazy, huh? Yeah. Getting new knees, new shoulders. Yeah.
Like Matt Serra, who's a UFC welterweight champion. He's got his knee replaced. He's back to jiu-jitsu. Wow. Training again hard.
He's going to get his other one done. I mean, it's kind of incredible.
Now will he compete again?
No. He's not competing anymore. Yeah. But he's 50, you know, close to it, at least. You know, what he's doing is just training and doing normal stuff.
At least he can do what he was doing before. Yeah.
At least he can do what he was doing before. I mean, there's a lot of guys that they do some pretty high-level athletics with knee replacements, which is pretty crazy. Does it hurt? What do the knees feel like?
No, but you know what? They kind of only bend. You can't go sideways with them. Oh, really? It's almost like it's done like this.
Like a hinge. It's like a hinge.
So it doesn't twist.
So, yeah, you can't really do much. You can't cut left and right. No, not real well. Not real well. But, yeah, it's kind of like this, yeah.
It's insane, because, you know, all the wrestlers that we've had on, all unbelievable athletes, right? But The Undertaker, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, especially, mostly known for their big characters, the entertainment side of things. And Kurt's also known for that. But really, Kurt is considered, I mean, Triple H, John Cena, they've all said that he is the best athlete in the history of the sport. So, compared to the people that we've had on, you've done more.
He was throwing people more and landing on his head more and doing longer matches at the peak of it all. And so it's wild to hear. A lot of them have had replacements and this and that. But it's almost a miracle that that's all that you've had.
Yeah. You know what? Especially with everything that I've gone through, it is really brutal. I probably, I did, I wrestled pro wrestling, I think it was 19 years, and I did amateur for about 22.. Wow.
And so, I mean, both of them have affected me. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. And, you know, I had probably eight knee injuries and four surgeries in college and high school.
Mostly meniscus stuff?
Yeah, I had one was ACL, but most of it was meniscus. I also blew out my PCL and I never had it replaced.
Oh, Jesus.
Still, I could, that's the, well, now they gave me a knee replacement, doesn't really matter.
Right.
Yeah. But I had my, my knee, I could shift my leg like three inches back and forth. It was really loose because my PCL wasn't there anymore.
That's insane.
And you were wrestling with that. Yeah.
See, that wasn't a complaint. 40 hours a week, such a long week. I'm so tired. Like this, this levels, this levels to what people have to tolerate in this life, what they have to endure. But I guess, going through all that, you could probably go through basically anything.
I don't know, man. Bring it on.
I've gone through a lot of shit, man. Wow.
What are you doing these days to keep yourself occupied?
Well, I just finished a movie called I Will Be Done. It's a really good independent movie. And I have a movie that I'm going to be doing at the beginning of next year with Michael Tedros Jr. Randy Couture is going to be in it. Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. So I've been doing some of that stuff. I run a podcast, The Kurt Angle Show. Oh, nice.
Yeah. And I also own a supplement company. I have a thing called, a company called Physically Fit. And we have a product called Smart Snacks. They're little crispy protein bites.
There are a bunch of flavors, 11 different flavors. They're really good, high protein, low carbohydrate. They're doing pretty well. Right now, we're going into Walmart.
We're in the Quick Fill stores, a bunch of grocery stores, a bunch of convenience stores. So they're doing okay.
Do you have a website that people can go to to get that?
Yeah, PhysicallyFit.com. PhysicallyFit.com.
How did you get that? That's incredible.
Yeah.
How did you get that? That's a fucking incredible URL.
It is. It is. You know what? That's what people, when they look, when they want to get in shape, the first thing they type up is, how do I get physically fit? Yeah.
And we're the first thing that pops up. It was clever on my co-owner's part to do that.
That's very clever. Yeah. So what are those chicks in, what is that?
How do you say that? Chicken snacks. Chicken snacks. Those are chicken protein. Oh.
They're made with chicken. The ones, whey protein at the top, those are whey protein.
And I believe, I think they're whey protein. They might be the organic plant protein.
Crispy protein bites. So you sell all kinds of stuff.
Yeah. Well, we just sell the protein bites.
Oh, okay.
They're all different. One's chicken, one's plant, one's whey. Oh, okay.
Yeah. Well, that's a great URL. Okay. So go to PhysicallyFit.com, folks. Go ahead.
Get some of that.
So that's great that you're doing movies, too. Randy Couture is probably the best example of a UFC fighter that went from, you know, fighting to, I mean, he was in Expendables. I mean, wrestling, then fighting. Fighting and then movies. Yeah.
I mean, he's done a great job.
He has. He's done a great job. I know he's been doing, he's what? He's done two Expendable movies?
How many of them are there?
Gosh, there's like. The fourth lot.
There's a lot?
11 or 12..
There's four of them?
I said 11 or 12..
It's hilarious. You watch these really old guys just kicking the shit out of everybody.
I know. I'm one of them. now. If they ever pick me to do it, I'm going to be 55.. So it's just funny that they're all over 50, over 60..
Yeah.
Well, Stallone. Stallone's pushing 80..
He looks great.
He does look great. He's the canary in the coal mine.
Yes, he is.
Keep it going as long as that guy has. He broke his neck on. one of those. I think he got his neck fused.
I heard about that. Yeah, he got fused and everything.
He was doing a stunt because he was doing his own stunts, and he got thrown into a wall or something. It snapped his neck.
I guess he was getting a little too old, and he stuck with it a little bit too long.
Well, he's hardcore. Imagine wanting to do your own stunts when you're 70.. Like, yo, throw me through the wall.
Let's go.
Fucking psycho.
I'm a big Stallone fan. I love the guy.
How can you not be? I mean, the guy can act, too. That's what's crazy about Stallone. That movie Copland. You ever see that movie Copland?
Good movie.
Very good movie, man. It was like one of his first movies where he gained weight. He actually got fat for that movie on purpose, just to show he's not just all about being fat.
God, he probably gained 40 or 50 pounds.
Yeah, and had a tremendous performance as an actor, just as an actor.
He's always used to dieting down in his movies.
Looking ripped, taking his shirt off. He's in a lot of those movies, too, obviously. But, you know, that was a very impressive movie. The fact that he—I mean, it's got to be hard for a guy like that, too. Your whole career, you're looking great, shredded.
Oh, yeah.
I'm sure it set him into a little bit of a depression, to be honest with you. Probably.
But then he probably also enjoyed the accolades from the movie, because a lot of people really respected him after that. For a lot of those action guys, that's the thing they don't get respect for, their actual acting ability.
The agility is incredible. I watched this, Gary Oldman—I don't know if I told you about this. I found this Gary Oldman—there's a nine-minute video on YouTube of him and all of his different characters that he's done. And you can't even tell it's him, 80 percent of them. The guy is such a freak.
Remember True Romance?
Oh, God. And that's just one of them.
Just one of them. How about Dracula? Oh.
Yeah, yeah, he was really good.
He's fucking, incredible. Unbelievable. And he played old Dracula and young Dracula in the same movie. Yeah.
He's so versatile. Yeah.
I think he's kind of—is he retired from acting? He might be one of those guys like, I've had enough. There's a lot of those guys that just get so tired of being other people. Like, who am I?
Right. Yeah, man. I mean, but his character, he really went way out there. Yeah.
Way out there.
No two are anywhere near the same. This thing that you're watching, because it just switches every 20 or 30 seconds to a different thing. Yeah. And nothing—you know, so many people get kind of typecasted, like Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Bastards. That character that he played was so cool that it almost seems like in every movie.
they're trying to get him to do that again. Yeah. All right, you're going to be a villain in this. Right. You're going to be smooth-talking and over-enunciating.
You know, they try to, like, get it again. And it's so interesting, the guys that, like, test themselves and push themselves like that.
It's got to be hard, when your whole identity is wrapped up in pro wrestling, to just stop. How difficult was it for you to just stop wrestling?
It was hard. I mean, when you leave, you get depressed. You miss the action. You miss the fans' responses.
It's—I understand why, you know, a lot of wrestlers have fell into depression, that start taking drugs, ended their lives a lot quicker than, you know, other professions. But it is. It's a very addictive form of entertainment. I mean, once you're in it, you love it, and you never want to leave it. And the problem is, everybody gets to an age where they can't do it anymore.
So you have to come to grips with it. If you don't, you're probably not going to survive much longer.
Well, look at Ric Flair.
You know what? He's living the dream. He's still Ric Flair. He's still Ric Flair. He's just not wrestling in the ring.
He's just doing it in the streets, everywhere. He's like, woo!
It is unbelievable.
Tell the story about how you were partying with him the other day.
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