• Former WWE Champion Is Bothered By The Lack Of Selling In Wrestling Today
Pro wrestling has evolved in massive ways over the last decade. A lot of wrestlers today prefer the acrobatic style of wrestling.
WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle thinks that wrestling lacks proper selling and storytelling today.
Here’s what he said about modern day wrestling while speaking on The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast:
“I think now, it’s a lot of high-flying and acrobatic, and these guys are showing their athleticism. They’re not showing, like, their working ability. Psychology.
I mean, the guys do sell, but a lot of times I see somebody that just took a devastating move and comes up and doesn’t sell it.
It’s like, whoa, that’s not how it’s supposed to be. I think that we’re losing sight of where wrestling should be.”
• Ric Flair Says Top WWE Star Isn’t On His Level
In a recent interview, WWE Hall of Famer Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart discussed his technical style of wrestling to the extreme, chop-heavy styles of Ric Flair and GUNTHER.
Ric Flair discussed those comments while speaking to The Escapist Magazine and praised Hart’s in-ring work. He stated that his fellow Hall of Famer preferred a less physical style.
“Oh, I agree with Bret as far as being one of the greatest technical performers of all time. That goes without saying. But Bret never liked to get smacked, and that’s the way I worked. We laugh about it now, but he just hated getting chopped.
But for me with someone like Ricky Steamboat, you must have seen our matches. I hit Steamboat as hard as I could. I hit Sting as hard as I could and the people could feel it. Especially when you’re out on the floor. I even watched a match between me and The Rock recently. I was smacking the hell out of The Rock. He didn’t care.”
Flair then talked about comparisons to GUNTHER’s style and said that he doesn’t see a comparison to himself. He also thinks that Pat McAfee is a better athlete than the former World Heavyweight Champion.
“For Gunther, I haven’t watched him enough, but what they find fascinating about Gunther is his look. He has a tremendous look. Because when he wrestled Pat McAfee. Pat McAfee was 10 times the athlete that he is. But Gunther has a great look. His facials are great and all that. But if you’re comparing him to me, come on, there’s levels to the game.”
• Kurt Angle Says WWE Legend Injured Him So Bad He Started Buying Painkillers Illegally From Mexico
Kurt Angle suffered some of the worst injuries a pro wrestler could throughout his career, which led to him struggling with painkillers.
The Olympic Gold Medalist had an intense rivalry with Brock Lesnar over two decades ago, and they ended up producing extremely physical matches.
While speaking on The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast, Angle spoke about The Beast Incarnate breaking his neck with a chair in WWE.
“When I broke my neck in WWE, that was the second time I broke it. First time was before the Olympics, the second time was my… third year in WWE.
Brock Lesnar actually broke it. He hit me over the head with a chair. Three vertebrae cracked and I had two more discs sticking in my spinal cord. It was really bad. And the doctor introduced me to painkillers, and I’m not going to lie to you, man, I loved it. I loved the way it made me feel, gave me energetic feeling, didn’t make me feel nauseous like some people it feels like. It made me alert.”
The WWE Hall of Famer went on to talk about his painkiller addiction following the injury and how he used to buy them illegally from multiple pharmacies in Mexico.
“You need two. Two led to four, four led to eight. Before I knew it, I was taking 65 extra (painkillers) a day. I was crushing it. I was buying them illegally from Mexico, 500 of them, and I was getting 12 different scripts from 12 different pharmacies. You can’t do it now.
I had a system, I had it all drawn out – this pharmacy on this date, that pharmacy on that date. So, I was getting 120 pills from each pharmacy, which is about 1800 pills. And you add on those 500 extra pills I was getting illegally from Mexico, that was around 2300 pills a month.”
Kurt Angle retired from in-ring competition after losing to Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35.
• “My neck is feeling terrible” – RAW Star
Xavier Woods is currently selling a neck injury as part of a storyline on WWE RAW. He has been appearing in a neck brace on the red brand and feels like Adam Pearce has been treating him unfairly.
In an appearance on the Battleground podcast, he said the following about his injury:
“My neck is feeling terrible. I don’t know if you watched RAW this past Monday night, but I was forced to wrestle even though my neck is injured. I had to take my neck brace off during the commercial break because the referee was accosting me about wearing it, as it was an illegal tool.”
He went on to talk about how a Mexican Destroyer from Penta further damaged his neck on the latest episode of RAW.
“Penta jumped off of Ivar’s back and somehow attached his body to mine into an incredible Mexican destroyer that has only injured my neck even more. So now I don’t know where we even are in the recovery process.”
The New Day member isn’t happy with Adam Pearce’s attitude and feels like the RAW General Manager is discriminating against him.
“Adam Pearce refuses, he absolutely refuses to ban this maneuver. But he bans it when it happens to Cody. He bans it, it gets banned when it happens to Randy. But oh, but not me, not the 21-year vet, not the 15-year company guy, not the guy who delivers every single time.”
