Kurt Angle at the Olympics?

Interesting article from the BBC sports page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/17027704

Now, Angle has been talking about an Olympic return for some time now. He's done a few training sessions with Amateur wrestlers over the past few years and mentioned the possibility on each occasion. I believe he's serious about at least going to the trials and having a crack at it, and there's no doubt that as a former world and Olympic champion, the guy has credentials and could possibly hold his own if he gets easy draws in the first couple of matches.

But in general I have to believe he's on a hiding to nothing. With his well documented injuries and the numbness and weakness he has in his arms and hands, coupled with his age, and just being away from the sport for so long, I just can't see him being at the level he needs to be to beat the top level guys trying out for the team. I think it’s a pipe-dream to expect that he can still compete.

Plus, there is the issue of drug and drink abuse. Kurt's admitted pain killer addictions, and I don't believe for a second that he is completely off them and clean. But if he is, then he is going to be in severe pain through this exercise, which is not going to be good. Plus, he's been arrested 3 or 4 times in the last year for being either drunk or otherwise intoxicated whilst driving, plus once for physical violence whilst intoxicated. So clearly he has problems. I doubt he'd pass the stringent drug testing at the Olympics.

I'd like nothing more than to see Angle come back and win gold in London. I think it would be amazing and I'd try to get tickets if he made the team. But I absolutely do not see it happening.

I 100% completely believe that Kurt Angle is deluding himself.

It was near the end of his WWE career that everyone was pretty much speculating he was in such poor condition, that he could keel over dead the shape he was in and the way he was in complete denial about it.

Since then in TNA, the man has been a personal train wreck. All the DUI's, all the poor behavior, all of the real life scandal everytime he turns around....

No way he's up for doing this. But of course Kurt Angle believes that Kurt Angle is up to it. To be honest, even though he completely dropped off the radar for me, the day he left WWE, I honestly think he's believed his own hype over the years as an unstoppable Superman of Wrestling, and thinks he's invincible.

It's going to be massive trouble for him, and of course no one around him is going to tell him otherwise, until something tragic happens.

To Kurt Angle, the mere suggestion that he stop wrestling or competing, in his mind, is like asking him to castrate himself. I said it back then, that was going to be the end of him, and I'm still saying it now. The thing is, I don't think anyone has the heart to tell him not to do this to himself, because he would just respond with "What AM I supposed to do, then?" and no one would have a good answer for him.

Wrestling is all Kurt Angle has ever had in his life. He started competing aged 6, and he's never stopped. Wrestling came before (and at the expense of) everything else in his life, including marriage, fatherhood, his own health, everything. Whether it was amateur wrestling or professional, he could never face not being able to do it or a life without it.

Its why he still competed with a broken neck, its why he still wrestled with concussions and rushed back from injuries, its why he carried on wrestling despite having nubness in his hands, and its why he stoked himself full of drugs in order to numb the pain: because the alternative - having to stop wrestling - was just something he could never contemplate.

But now I think he's reached the point where, somewhere in the darkest reaches of his mind, he knows its coming to an end. Some part of him knows he has to stop soon. But he can't let it go without trying to push himself one final time, without somehow proving to everybody that he really was "the best".

Because no matter what he achieved, it was never enough. I mean, the guy was world and olympic amateur champion, and won everything when he went into sports entertainment. He's widely acknowledge by his peers to have been a true great, but somehow the part of his brain that would make any of us go "I've done well, I've acheived, I'm happy with that" doesn't work with Kurt.

I honestly think its the death of his father that has made him like it. He says in his book that, when his dad died, Kurt felt the need to compete and win for him. He felt he owed it to his Dad to succeed, that he had to do it for him, and I don't think he's ever stopped feeling like that. He's trying to somehow repay some "debt" to his Dad which he can never repay, and which never existed in the first place.

As a consequence, Kurt can never be happy. And I think now he's starting to realise his body is giving up, he's becoming increasingly desparate. So much so that he's clutching at the most outlandish straw imaginable because he sees that as the golden egg of all achievement.

Totally agree, on all counts. Like we said in the conversation earlier I can't see Angle being physically or mentally able to do it, even if he is now clean. Which I doubt. But I totally think he'll try it, just to say he has.

I'm also with you on there being a hole in Angle that will never be filled. Nothing will ever be enough. What's scary is the condition that people like Hall are in and yet they are still wheeled out. With a mindset like Angle's and people willing to exploit that it's a recipe for something bad to happen.

Very intuitive posts guys.

I have to agree with you really. The Olympics aren't going to accept any half-measures and no one but the most dedicated and fit athletes are going to get into the Olypmics. The fact that he's propped up on painkillers and drinking to numb the pain just shows the fragile state he's in, and I don't think he'll be able to go through.

However, I'd like to think that if anyone could do it, Angle would stand a good chance. He's always been an outstanding wrestler and stranger things have happened at sea. I'd like to see Kurt get in, just so he might get a bit of closure in doing it, and stop pushing his body so far before it's too late.

I'd love him to be able to do it. Like you say, find that closure and get it done. I guess we'll have to see.