|
Article On Kurt Angle's return, courtesy of WWE.com:
|
 |
|
Kurt Angle on Wednesday received full medical clearance to return to the ring from his doctor, and is scheduled to do just that at the June 3 taping of SmackDown! in Anaheim, Calif.
“I’m ready now, but they’re going to wait two weeks,” Angle told WWE.com in a telephone interview today. “My return on SmackDown! is in two weeks.”
It’s unclear at this point exactly what Angle will be doing on the show, but if he needs to wrestle, he said he’s prepared. In fact, he’s already started working out in the ring.
“(Last week) I took about 30 bumps (falls on the mat) and I didn’t have any pain in my neck or head, which is a good sign,” he said. “That made me feel better.
“I’ll get in the ring next week when I go to (the) TV (taping in Pensacola, Fla.), and iron out the kinks. I’m going to get a lot of practice at the house shows. I’m going to be working out before the house shows and before TVs. I’m going to get prepared as best as I can. If I missed six, eight, 12 or 14 months, I’d go down to OVW (Ohio Valley Wrestling). But it’s only been six weeks. ... I’m going to be a little bit sluggish, but I don’t think I’ll be too rusty. I’ll just take a few days and I’ll be fine.”
Angle’s surgery was on April 11. Instead of having spinal fusion -- the way seven other WWE Superstars have -- which would have forced him to miss one year, Angle elected to have a less invasive procedure, performed by Dr. Hae-Dong Jho in Angle’s hometown of Pittsburgh.
Other Superstars -- particularly those who had the fusion surgery, and those who are currently dealing with neck pain -- will be closely monitoring the Olympic gold medalist to see how his surgically repaired neck holds up throughout the weeks and months. Some Superstars are skeptical, thinking that the surgery is “too good to be true” and merely a “quick fix.”
“I look back and I don’t regret making this decision,” Angle said. “For me, I feel like it’s the best thing I could have done. I know that the other guys have had a lot of success with the fusion, but I’m a big believer in keeping flexibility and mobility in my neck. I feel my career will be longer without fusion. I might be taking more of a chance, but I also believe my neck will hold up very well, and it’s strong enough to endure what I’m going to do.”
But even if the pain returns, Angle said he can deal with it |
After all, he wrestled in the Olympics with a broken neck, and he’s been dealing with chronic pain -- “pain that would normally incapacitate somebody,” he said -- for the past eight years. “I can deal with it for another eight,” he said. “That pain is very normal to me. My neck pain’s so chronic, you just get used to it. That’s what I’ve done.”
If Angle can wrestle long term, it is expected that many other Superstars will follow in his footsteps and see Dr. Jho. In fact, one of them, “Brooklyn Brawler” Steve Lombardi, already has, although his neck condition wasn’t as serious as Angle’s, and he doesn’t wrestle nearly as often as the Pittsburgh native.
“A guy like Steve Blackman may be next,” Angle said, referring to the former WWE Superstar. “You might see him back in the company soon.”
Angle added that he’s also heard rumors about other Superstars who may be candidates for Dr. Jho’s procedure, or will be soon.
“These guys might want to kind of get ahead of the game and go see Dr. Jho if they feel even remotely like there’s some kind of damage there,” Angle said. “The earlier the better. God forbid these guys have to get surgery, but you’re going to see more guys getting surgery -- it’s going to keep on happening until we reeducate the fans to enjoy wrestling, and not so much high-risk acrobatics.”
Angle admits that, like many other up-and-coming Superstars, he may have pushed the physical envelope too far when he was trying to prove himself in the sports-entertainment business.
He points to his match with Chris Benoit at Royal Rumble as the type of match that Superstars should try to have -- full of intensity and drama, but not full of risky, career-shortening maneuvers.
“I can remember when a powerbomb through a table took someone out for a month and a half,” Angle said. “(These days) we’re trying to impress people. I took a piledriver from (Stone Cold Steve) Austin on the mat out on the floor (and) they rushed me to the hospital. I was on the show later that night with a neck brace. We did all that and totally took the realism out of wrestling just by me returning that night. Fans can’t sympathize with people who can’t get hurt -- or at least show that they can get hurt.
“If you give someone a powerbomb through a table, or if you press slam them out of the ring onto the floor -- which we’ve done a million times -- tell that story! Keep him off TV for a month or so, interview him about how he’s doing.
And then whenever we do these (high-impact maneuvers), it’ll be a bigger deal. People want to see somebody go through a table every night. You can’t do that. It’s not worth our athletes getting hurt.”
There’s a great deal of debate right now -- among WWE fans, officials and Superstars -- about whether Angle, when he returns, will be a fan favorite (babyface) or a “bad guy” (heel). Angle’s vignettes have gotten an extremely positive response when they air in arenas throughout the country, an indication that most fans will cheer him when he returns.
Angle was a babyface for a brief time in late 2001, but he said that was only because WWE officials wanted to involve him in a storyline with Austin, who was a heel at the time. “So I’ve never really had a chance on that side,” Angle said, referring to being a good guy.
“Maybe this time, we let Kurt Angle see where he can take the company (as a babyface). I could be smart and wait till the company swings around ... and then I turn good and take all the credit for it. But I’m up to the challenge of being a babyface when things are down.”
If Angle does end up on the good side of the fence, he’ll have to change his entrance music. Even if fans are cheering him, he knows they’ll still chant “you suck” to his music, just because they’ve been doing it for so long. He suggests that he could get new music so that his current theme could be used only by Team Angle (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin).
On the other hand, Angle may keep the music and remain a bad guy.
“Sometimes (fans) just really enjoy me being a heel so much that they don’t want to see me turn good,” he said. “So maybe my role in the company is to just be a heel.”
Only time will tell, Angle said.
“I think what we’re going to do as a company is, we’re going to let the fans decide,” he said. “Vince (McMahon) is going to listen. I’m going to listen. J.R. (Jim Ross) is going to listen. The writers are going to listen. What do the fans want to see? Do they want to see Kurt Angle kick ass, or do they want to see Kurt Angle get his ass kicked? It’s completely up to them.
“I’m just excited to be back.”