On the latest episode of his “The Kurt Angle Show,” WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle reflected on his rematch with Shawn Michaels at WWE Vengeance Day in 2005, Batista’s work in Hollywood, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Batista’s jump to Hollywood and giving Batista a black eye in 2005: “I don’t remember giving him a black eye, but I will say that Batista at this point in his career was, I thought Triple H did a really good job of mentoring him. He was really good at this point in his career. So if he’s listening, please keep doing your movies and stay away from me. It’s incredible, I’m so proud of him. Seeing how far he’s come, doing all the Marvel movies and just all the other movies, he’s doing so many different things, become a big star. He’s so personal. You know what, I’m not gonna lie to you. He might be the best wrestling actor in Hollywood right now. He might be.”
On his first ever match with Ric Flair: “I’ll tell you this, that night he was not in shape, okay? He didn’t wrestle for like a long time, like eight, 10 months. And he, when he did wrestle, it was very few and far in between. And when he wooed that night, he blew up. He got tired, wooing up the wound, blew up, got tired. He was at the end. Yeah. And, and later on he said, ‘listen, man, I’m not that great of shape. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. You’re gonna have to give some rest periods where, you know, put me in a rest, hold. Let me get my breath.’ So, you know, here’s Ric Flair, the greatest of all time. He’ll tell me, ‘Hey, pace this match. Make sure I can get through it.’ And you know what? Ric is the hardest worker in the business. He just wasn’t active at this point in his career. So unfortunately he wasn’t able to, you know, go in there and give 110%.”
On wrestling Shawn Michaels for a second time: “I’m just saying he might be okay. Okay. He was pickier back then. He was a little tough. You know what? We just had more of a knack for each other. I mean, you don’t need to have chemistry with Shawn Michaels, ’cause he’s naturally gonna have chemistry with everyone. But I felt more comfortable the second time. We had no build to it. But I mean, if you’re gonna wrestle, you know, Shawn Michaels against Kurt Angle, you don’t really need a buildup. I, you know, it would’ve been nice to have it, but we didn’t.”
