On Chris Van Vliet’s INSIGHT podcast, Kurt Angle discussed his complex feelings about Chris Benoit, a topic WWE has historically avoided following the 2007 tragedy involving Benoit’s family. Angle admitted he initially complied with WWE’s directive to distance himself from Benoit’s legacy but later found it detrimental to his own career highlights.
“I did it for a while. I did what I was told to do, was to pretend Benoit didn’t exist,” Angle said. However, he realized this approach erased some of his best matches, explaining, “By saying that Chris Benoit no longer exists, it’s saying I never had those matches. I had my best matches with that guy, and he was an incredible wrestler.”
While unequivocal in condemning Benoit’s actions, Angle still acknowledged his respect for Benoit’s wrestling ability. “I don’t condone what he did. What he did was 100% wrong. It’s unforgivable. But how he was in the ring? He was the best in-ring worker I’ve ever been in the ring with. He reminded me of me. I felt like I was wrestling my twin.”
Angle attributed the quality of their matches to their shared intensity and chemistry. “Chris, nobody more intense than him, except for me. We brought it, and we would stay on each other. We had incredible chemistry where we were able to do finished trade-offs and submission trade-offs like nobody else.”
He highlighted their match for the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble 2003, calling it possibly the greatest wrestling match of all time:
“I believe that Chris and I might have had the greatest wrestling match of all time at Royal Rumble 2003. That’s how confident I feel about it. If no one’s ever seen it, you got to watch the match. I mean, we barely threw any punches, a couple of kicks. It was all wrestling, and that’s really difficult to do, especially today.”
When discussing his greatest rivals, Angle mentioned Benoit alongside Brock Lesnar and Shawn Michaels. “Him and Brock Lesnar. I also love wrestling Shawn Michaels. We only wrestled three or four times. It wasn’t like a big program. But Benoit and I, we went for years. We had a really strong program, and it went on for years. But Brock, our program went on for about two and a half, three years, and that was a good run.”
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