Kurt Angle Thinks The Fundamental Aspect Of Wrestling Has Receded
Wrestling legend Kurt Angle has some thoughts on the current state of professional wrestling; in particular, he thinks an aspect missing from the business is wrestling itself. In an interview with SHAK Wrestling, Kurt Angle bemoaned the lack of wrestling in the current wrestling landscape, saying it was more about spots now.
"It's receded because a lot of these athletes now just do a bunch of spots," Angle said. "Nothing really makes sense. It's more of a spot fest. They go out there and do these impressive things, a couple flips over the top rope onto the floor, you know? Things that don't tell a story, you know? Psychology is the most important thing in wrestling and you want to have great psychology and a good storyline. A good story is babyface versus heel.
"The babyface shines on the heel, the heel sells, the heel cheats, gets the babyface face down, gets heat on the heel, or the heel gets heat on the babyface. The babyface makes a big comeback, you have the false finishes, and then the finish. So if you have that certain psychology in wrestling, you're going to get it right every time as long as you do that. But a lot of these matches now, there's no baby and no heel. It's just two athletes going at it and I think that's where we lost a little bit of our psychology."
That being said, Kurt Angle also admitted that a lot of pro wrestling doesn't make sense and hasn't made sense to him since the beginning. In particular, he pointed out how many wrestling moves don't actually hurt and would be ineffective in a real fight.
"There are a lot of moves that don't really hurt," Angle said. "I mean the most popular finish of all time, the Stone Cold Stunner, it doesn't knock you out. Honestly, there are a lot of moves that if you're a real fighter, a real MMA fighter and you've never watched pro wrestling and you start watching it, you're going to go 'what the hell is this?'
"I'll give you an example. When the heel gets the babyface down, the heels get heat on the face, makes a comeback, starts fighting, making a comeback, and then he stops, runs the other way, hits the ropes, and comes back to the heel. Why would you run away from the heel when you're beating him up already? So there are a lot of things in pro wrestling that if you're a real MMA fighter and you never saw pro wrestling, you're not going to understand. You're going to think it's stupid."
On the subject of moves that didn't make sense, Kurt Angle revealed one sequence that vexed him from the moment he started wrestling.
"A spot where somebody is running ropes and someone leapfrogs," Angle said. "Why would you, if you leapfrog somebody, somebody steps over, you're going to stop and catch them and slam them. But there are things in pro wrestling when I first started, I didn't understand. I was like 'that makes no sense. I don't understand why they would do a leapfrog or, if you tackled somebody and you got him down and then the guy hits the ropes and it allows you to get back up again.' I didn't understand that. It just didn't make any sense to me."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit SHAK Wrestling with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.