Kurt Angle Wishes He Could Have Wrestled Mick Foley Earlier In Career
Kurt Angle reflected on wrestling Mick Foley in TNA and how the Olympic Gold Medallist wishes they got to wrestle many years earlier.
When Kurt Angle started as a regular in WWE in late 1999, Mick Foley’s run as a full-timer was winding down. Angle’s debut was in November 1999 at Survivor Series while Foley retired at No Way Out the following February.
As many fans know, Mick Foley made many comebacks post-2000 with some matches in WWE over the next six years and then he went to TNA/Impact in 2008 where he wrestled more there as well. Foley even won Impact’s World Heavyweight Title as well.
At the TNA Victory Road 2009 pay-per-view, Kurt Angle defended the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against Mick Foley.
Currently, both men do podcasts all about their careers. Angle recently did a “Kurt Angle Show” podcast episode of TNA Victory 2009. Angle explained how he went into the match with a torn groin.
“When I was doing the movie [Warrior], we did the fight scenes for about six months. I mean it was a lot of work. We were doing it over and over and over. Joe Egerton got hurt. He hurt his knee. So he was out for two months. So I’m going with his double for a couple of months. Joe comes back, I go with him for two months. Tom Hardy, same thing. Something happened to him, he got sick, and he had to sit out for a while. So all of this was happening and we were just trying to get the movie done.”
“I was working my butt off. Every day, I was in the octagon, fighting every single day, either wrestling their body double or the or the actor themselves. I shot a double leg and went to lift them, and I popped my groin and tore it and knew right on the spot I was in trouble.”
As he continued, Kurt Angle spoke about how called TNA to say he was hurt.
“The trainer came and checked me out. We finished up that day, and I called TNA, and I said, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to go.’ They said, ‘Do you think you can make it through a 10-minute or 12-minute match? I said yeah, I could probably work around that. So that’s probably why they had me do that promo before the pay-per-view where I said the match wouldn’t be long because I’m going to take Mick out as soon as I can. I think that was a lot of the reason why I did that promo.”
Kurt Angle added that if he was healthy, he thinks the match would have been a lot better.
“Even with Mick’s limitations because of his conditioning and everything, if I was 100% healthy, I could have made the match look a lot better. I would have been able to do a lot more stuff, make Mick look a lot more dominant. I would have been able to make the match much better than it was.”
While there were issues going into it, Kurt Angle was happy with the match.
“I wish Mick was in better wrestling shape. I know he wished he was, but still, it wasn’t bad. I was really happy with the match. Especially with me my groin injury, knowing that he didn’t have the conditioning that he wanted. I thought the match wasn’t shit. I thought it was okay.”
When summarizing the whole situation, Kurt Angle added that he wishes they got to wrestle when they were both in their prime.
“Don’t get me wrong. I wish Mick and I could have wrestled in our prime. At this point in time, Mick was a little bit past his prime. I was still kind of in my prime, but I was injured. Don’t get me wrong, Mick can still go. He could still go today.” (laughs)