Olympic champion and WWE star Kurt Angle is a wrestling dad stepping up to support women’s wrestling

Kurt Angle has lived his life big. NCAA wrestling champion. World and Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling. Major superstar in professional wrestling for decades.

Kurt Angle has experienced some of life’s highest highs, and during challenging periods of his life when he was fighting addiction, many of life’s lowest lows. Angle’s life has been publicly documented in so many ways, in media coverage, books and documentaries. There is even a major movie project in the works based upon Angle’s life story.

You might know a lot about Kurt Angle, but there are things you may not know. Kurt Angle is a wrestling dad to a girl wrestler, and he wants to use his passion and influence to help build women’s wrestling in the United States.  

“I have always wanted to give back to the sport. I've been so busy that I wasn't able to, but now that I've settled down and am semi-retired, I can spend more time with my family. My daughter, Nikoletta, is eight years old. This is her first year wrestling. She absolutely loves it. She's the biggest Helen Maroulis fan in the world,” said Angle.

Angle is learning a whole new set of things about life as the father of a girl who wrestles.

“It's a whole different perspective when you're the dad. I won't train her, because I want to be the dad that kisses her boo boos, hugs her and if she loses, to say, ‘hey, it's all right, honey.’ My brother Eric trains her like she's Rocky. You know what, it's good for me, because I could be the good guy. I don't have to be the bad guy. Instead of getting mad at me, she gets mad at Uncle Eric. She's like, ‘Daddy, I love you. Thank you for being here.’ So, we have a good one-two combination with my daughter,” said Angle.

We can expect to see Kurt Angle around the wrestling community more often, not only because he has more time available, but also because of his daughter.

“I've been at some events locally. Every once in a while, I go to a tournament. I have not let my daughter wrestle a tournament in her first year. She's still getting the hang of it, but she loves it. So eventually, probably next year, I'll be in every tournament with everybody, like any wrestling Dad. It should be pretty cool,” said Angle.

Angle is also motivated to help create new opportunities for girls and women in wrestling. His first step is to help USA Wrestling, the organization which helped him during his Olympic wrestling journey.

“I decided to get involved and help out the women's program, our women's freestyle Olympic wrestling team. I'm raising money for them, working with some really big donors. They're on board with what we're doing. We going to help raise money so they have stipends, can make ends meet and also pay their travel expenses for training and competition.”

He also wants to use his influence in his home state of Pennsylvania to develop more women’s college wrestling programs.

“I have donors here in Pennsylvania that are big Penn State fans. They want Pennsylvania to be the top women's wrestling state in the whole country. So, what they want to do is they want to start women’s wrestling clubs throughout every campus,” said Angle.

Angle believes that raising expanded support for USA Wrestling women’s program, as well at the college level, will help the United States rise to the top of the world.

“I don't see why we won't. I don't know how long it's going to take. We’re going to get there eventually, because women's wrestling is rising. Our Olympic team is one of the best in the world. I believe we're second to Japan, but I believe we're actually better than Japan. I think we're going to prove it in this quad leading up to Los Angeles,” said Angle.

To join Angle in supporting USA Wrestling’s women’s freestyle team, please consider donating to https://usawrestling.goodworldnow.com/p/angle

Below is the transcript from the rest of Gary Abbott’s interview with Kurt Angle, which covers his Olympic wrestling career, his professional wrestling career and overcoming many of his life’s biggest challenges.

It was 29 years ago that you won the Olympic gold medal in Atlanta. How vivid is your memory of that experience, and how often do you think about that time of your life?

Angle: I still haven't soaked it all in. I think about it and think, wow, this is something that not a lot of people in the world have ever done, mostly 99.9% of the population. And this happened to me, and it's just a great feeling. Whenever I feel lonely about myself, I think about the Olympic gold medal, and it gives me more confidence. What you're able to attain, what you're able to win, makes you special. And I'm so honored and privileged to be able to be a part of amateur wrestling, and it shaped my life incredibly well.

My brothers pushed me hard and forced me into this sport. Because I'm going to be honest with you, I did not like it when I first started. As a matter of fact, I hated it. I used to lose a lot and cry a lot, and I was a bit of a cry baby. My brothers never doubted if I'd ever be good, but the light bulb did eventually go off my head, and when it did, the rest is history.

People may not know that you were also a World champion in 2015, also in Atlanta. You were a member of the USA team which won the World freestyle team title. What was special about the group of U.S. wrestlers on Team USA at that time?

Angle: We had a very talented roster. I remember that Worlds. Kevin Jackson was there and he was World champion. Bruce Baumgartner and Tom Brands were World champions, and I was World champion. We had a good group of guys there. That was basically the same team as the 1996 Olympic team, just a little bit different, That definitely helped me. I knew that we had one of the best teams in the world, especially with the group of guys that we had at that point in time. To be a part of that was like, Wow, I'm a part of an incredibly gifted group of guys right here that have proven themselves all over the world, and now it's time for me to prove myself. And I was able to do that. I won the world championships in 1995 and then the Olympic gold medal in 1996 so I made my lifelong dream come true with the Olympic gold medal,

There was big jump in your performance in 2014 and 2015. What do you attribute your ability to go from a good freestyle wrestler to the best?

Angle: I attribute it to what I did in my training in 1993 and 1994. I was having a very difficult time making the USA team. There are two guys that I couldn't beat and kept beating me consistently, Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr. So, after the 1994 season, you probably don't know this, but I quit for about five months. When I quit, I figured I'm never going to beat these guys. I started feeling sorry for myself. I started feeling guilt, my mind was saying, ‘Hey buddy, you know, if you're going to give up on this, you're never going to know if you would have made the team. Do you want to push through until 1996 and improve yourself, or do you just want to quit right now and never look back?’  I was afraid, I was going to look back and say, Man, I let it slide by me. So I decided to come back. But I came back with a game plan. I came back when I learned exhaustion training. I learned this from Coach Dan Gable and his wrestlers. He would train the wrestlers until they were exhausted, and that's when the training actually began. I was at a World Team camp with Coach Gable, and he beat the crap out of us. It was the hardest thing I ever did, I was like, wow, these Iowa kids, this is why they're so good. They're not the best technical guys. They're actually the most well-conditioned. They're wearing people down and beating them because their opponents are getting tired. And I thought, Man, I'm not the biggest, the strongest, the fastest or the most technical or the best wrestler of my weight class, but what I knew I could be is the most well-conditioned. I would wear my opponents down, scoring once I got them tired. It worked extremely well. In 1995, I won the Worlds and in 1996 I won the Olympic gold medal, I turned it all around from the previous two previous seasons.

How did the sport of wrestling, the high school, college and Olympic freestyle years, impact your life and help you in the years after your success at the Atlanta Games?

Angle: You know what? It it breeds confidence. Wrestling breeds confidence, and that's what I had a lot of. I never second-guessed myself, except for that one time when I quit for five months. It really taught me to push through the barriers. The harder I worked, the more confident I got and I believed in myself. And that's something that wrestling teaches you. It teaches you that, if you want to be successful, you have to have confidence. You have to work hard. You have to believe in yourself. If you believe in yourself, you have the advantage on your opponent. You don't know if either your opponent believes in himself or not. He might be the most insecure person in the world, but as long as you know you're confident, then know what you need to do to win that match and win that tournament. That's all that matters, and that's what I was able to do. I was able to focus solely on my training and competition. I had a great group of people with me backing me up, my mother, my brothers. It wasn't just Kurt Angle wrestling out there. It was Team Angle, and we all contributed to it. It was because of my incredible family supporting me and doing everything for me. I mean, my mom literally would make my meals for me, do the laundry for me. She'd have everything set up for me the next day to go train. My brothers were training with me. So I had a good group of guys and women and a great woman that really helped me dramatically. I have to give them a lot of the credit.

Although many in the Olympic wrestling community know that you were successful in professional wrestling, they may not know the details of that part of your life. How would you describe your journey in entertainment wrestling?

Angle: You know what? It was the complete opposite. there's a lot of differences. They have the same name, wrestling, right? But they're worlds apart. For example, in amateur wrestling, I was always taught to show no emotion, go out there with a poker face on, get the job done, win your match and move on. And pro wrestling, you have to show every emotion, whether you're scared, excited, angry, upset, or whatever the emotion is, because that's what the fans want. That's how you sell tickets at pro wrestling. In amateur wrestling you pin them as quickly as you can, get the match over with as fast as possible. In pro wrestling, you have to slow down. Tell a story.

I was always taught never to get thrown, never get beat up, never to let my opponents take me down. It was a very tough transition. Why do I have to let them take me down? Why do I have to give half of the match up to my opponent? It was a learning process, but once I learned it, I caught on very quickly, and I had a lot of success in pro wrestling. I became the best wrestler in the business two years into the business. It happened very, very quickly, and it's because I forgot everything I ever learned about amateur wrestling.

What was the most difficult part of being a professional wrestling athlete and how did you handle those challenges?

Angle: It’s the most brutal form of sport there is. Not only do you get beat up in the ring, you probably bump 25-30, times a night, which is really bad on your body. But not only that, you're driving from city to city every day. Usually what they do is, at the beginning of the week, they fly you on a commercial jet to a city or town. You do that show, and then you rent a car and you go to the next city four hours away. You do the show there, then you drive another four hours to the next city. So, you do this six days a week, and you get one day a week off. It's horrible. So you have no family life. You're traveling all the time. It's brutal. You're in the ring beating the crap out of yourself. It is really, really difficult. And, you know, I ended up getting addicted to painkillers, and that was a very difficult time in my life, and a very dark time in my life.

Could you talk a bit more about those challenging times?

Angle: I was introduced to painkillers by doctor, and the first time I took them, I'm not going lie to you, I absolutely loved them. It made me feel energetic. They didn't make me feel nauseous, like they do a lot of other people. It really made me feel good. I couldn't feel the pain anymore. With painkillers, your body builds a tolerance, and people don't tell you this. If you're taking one every four to six hours, after a couple months, that doesn't work. Then you have to start taking two, the two led to four. Before I knew it, I'm talking enough to kill a horse. It was really bad. I had to structure a calendar to make sure that I could cross paths with pharmacy that I would get my prescriptions from. I was getting prescriptions from 12 different doctors, so let's go to 12 different pharmacies. Not only that, but I was paying for them illegally as well from Mexico. I got in a really big trap, and there was no way out for me. What I did is I ended up quitting. I quit the WWE, and then I was able to I found a doctor that would get me off the painkillers.

After I got over the painkiller problem, I went to another company and wrestled for them. I went to TNA wrestling, and there I got my painkiller problem under control, but then I started drinking alcohol excessively. That's what an addict does. He switches from one drug to the other, and that's what I did. I got caught into alcohol, and I made some really terrible decisions with drinking. I would drink and drive, and I was completely careless and reckless and out of control, irresponsible. And the thing is, when you're in it, you don't think you are. You trick your mind and say, oh, what I'm doing is okay. From my fourth DUI in five years, I called my wife from jail, and she said, I can't do this anymore. Either go to rehab or I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving. I didn't want to lose my wife, my kids, so I went to rehab. It was best decision I ever made. I've been clean for 14 years now. I credit that to my family, to my wife and kids, because if it weren't for them, pushed me to do it. I love them more than I did my addiction. I'm not going to lie to you, I really loved my addiction. I mean, it was my baby, but I love my wife and kids more, so I chose them over my addiction.

How has your success in pro wrestling allow you to make an impact on the lives of others?

Angle: I run into at least 30 or 40 people a day that come up to me and say, ‘you made my childhood. I used to watch as a family with my dad, my mom and my brothers, and you were one of my favorites.’ To hear that from people is like the greatest feeling in the world. You were in their living room every week, and you were entertaining that family every single week. Knowing that so many people are grateful of your career and share all these memories that you did on TV with them is the best feeling. I thank them more than they thank me.

I thank them because that means so much to me. You know, pro wrestling is such a big thing. I don't want to call it a sport, but it's a big entertainment venue worldwide. In any country you go into, it's hugely popular. I mean, a lot of countries, its more popular than it's here. So knowing that is actually a pretty good feeling, knowing that a lot of people in the world know who I am. They know my name and they know about me. That's wonderful. I know there are a lot of people out there, celebrities, that say ‘don't bother me.’ I like fans to bother me. I don't care. I like when fans come up to me and thank me for the career I've had. I think it's incredible to be able to communicate with your fans, the people that put food on your table. I've never shied away from them. I've always been very grateful to have them as my fans.

What are your thoughts about amateur and Olympic wrestling at this time? How is your sport doing?

Angle: It has evolved into something that I never thought of when I was wrestling. It is as mainstream as it's ever been. That is a credit to USA Wrestling. It's a credit to the NCAA. It's a credit to everything, every level. I mean, these little kids programs all the way up through high school, it's evolving, and it's getting bigger and bigger. Nobody's going to be able to slow it down once this thing gets enough steam going downhill. It's just going keep going. It's going to get bigger and bigger.

Gable Steveson versus Wyatt Hendrickson. Whoa! You talk about putting wrestling on the map. That put it right there because the President of the United States was there watching. And to have this storybook finish for this kid from the Armed Forces beating the Olympic gold medalist. I jumped out of my seat. I couldn't believe it. Man, this is so good for wrestling right now, because I knew it was going to be a top story the next day. It absolutely was. Wyatt Hendrickson outdid himself. To be able to beat an Olympic gold medalist in the NCAA championship finals. I don't know if that would ever happen again.  I've only seen a few of those. I mean, Rulon on beating Kareline was pretty big.