411’s WWE Angle Report: Kurt Angle’s Life From Childhood To Olympic Gold & Addict To Sobriety

-Sadly, I did not make it to Payback on Saturday. I couldn’t find anyone else to go and I didn’t want to go by myself. Tickets were still around $80 for upper-level seating when I checked Saturday morning. Instead, I went golfing that morning and watched the show with my two little boys that evening. Peacock dropped a new documentary the same day about Kurt Angle that follows in the footsteps of the ones they have recently done on Ric Flair and Cody Rhodes. Easy to see the connection for why it was dropped as Angle is as Pittsburgh as can be. He went to school at Mt Lebanon High School which is just outside Pittsburgh. This should be fun! Let’s get to it!

Run Time: 1:47:53

-During the opening credits we hear Angle being interviewed when he was 21 about collegiate wrestling. He attended Clarion University which is PA State School like my alma-mater, California University of PA. The two schools are in the same conference as far as sports, but I have never made the trip to a football or basketball game at Clarion yet. Kurt also represents the USA Team and is looking to wrestle in the Olympics.

-We get still photos of Kurt’s Olympic career as the credits continue to pop up on the screen and it transitions to photos from his WWE career. Directed by Alex Perry!

-Kurt says he wants to be remembered not for the mistakes he made, but what he accomplished in his life. Since he was a kid, he has always wanted to be something great.

-Pittsburgh, PA: STEELERS, PIRATES! Kurt says they were the City of Champions. Football was his first love, and we see young Kurt Angle being interviewed when he played for Mt. Lebanon. His goal was to be All State and play in the Big 33 Game. For those unaware, the Big 33 Game was a High School All Star Game between PA and Ohio (now it’s PA and Maryland). Every Super Bowl played to this day has had at least 1 player in it that played in the Big 33 Game. His goal was also to play at Penn State, Pitt, WVU, or Rutgers as a LB. We meet Johnny Angle, Kurt’s brother, who says Kurt was set on being a Champion.

-Dormont, PA: We see the Angle house and Johnny says he and Kurt were the youngest, so they were left out. Kurt says the entire family loved sports and they would talk about it at the dinner table. Eric Angle was 18 months older than Kurt and would punch people in the face at the drop of the hat for messing with him. Kurt says Eric knocked him out cold one day. Eric laughs and says he doesn’t want to tell that story. The boys would box with 16 oz gloves in the basement as we meet David, another brother. Apparently, Kurt was the one that would end up crying. Kurt’s brothers would often get in trouble, while Kurt was the good one. Kurt’s mom adored him, and the brothers talk about the bond she had with Kurt. Le’Anne is the sister, and she was the only girl in a house full of boys. She was the only one Kurt’s dad would hug as that was his princess.

-David Angle, is Kurt’s father, and he was in the service for twenty-five years as Master Sergeant First Class. Kurt says his dad would wake him up early in the morning at 6-7 years old to get him to wrestling tournaments. His just wanted his boys to give their best no matter the outcome. Kurt says his father was a functioning alcoholic, which his brothers won’t say as they basically see their father as Superman. “He drank all day. It wasn’t a lot, but he loved his rum and gin.”

-I just love these photos from present day and past days of Pittsburgh. We go back to the interview of young Kurt where he is asked about an accident that happened to his father on August 27, 1985. Kurt was at football practice and a coach had to tell him that his dad was in an accident and was at Mercy Hospital. His father was a construction worker and when he went to get his lunch, he stepped on rebarb, lost his balance and fell 13 feet on the back of his head and shoulder. He broke his shoulder and fractured his skull. He was on life support and Kurt’s mother made the decision to take him off after 2 ½ days. Before doing it, she begged her husband to come back. “If you come back we will make this work,” and as Kurt says this he starts breaking down. Not even ten minutes in and this is already tough to watch. Kurt’s sister jumped on her father and begged them not to pull the plug. They removed her, and “that was it. My dad was gone.” This was heartbreaking to listen to Kurt tell this story.

-Back to the interview where Kurt talks about praying before each match and talking to his father which helps him do better. Kurt notes his father passed away on a Wednesday of the first week of school and he decided to play football as a way to honor his dad.

-Mt Lebanon High School: The Blue Devils for those wondering! Again, I am nerding out over this and some may not care, but here is some background. The State of PA is run by The PIAA for high school sports. There are districts that make up the PIAA and the largest is The WPIAL (Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League). WPIAL Football is one of the most storied in the country as the area has produced NCAA and NFL Hall of Famers all over the place. Montana, Marino, Namath, Unitas, Revis, Donald, Ditka, and Dorsett are just some of the names. Okay, back to the documentary. Kurt had his first game and says a light switched on as he had a game that was beyond unbelievable. WE HAVE HOME FOOTAGE! Kurt had 2 TD as a fullback, 14 solo tackles, 2 fumble recoveries, and an Interception. I’m trying to see what team they are playing, but the footage isn’t the best. Again, nobody will care, but I have to know. I will look it up later.

-Kurt says he was a great football player, but the wrestling started to outweigh the football. Kurt’s wrestling coach pulled him aside and told him he is going to be a State Champion. More PA High School goodness as we see Kurt winning the 1987 PA State Championship. He dominated his weight class and wrestled Nationally where he won a National Championship before he graduated high school.

-Bob Bubb, Clarion Wrestling Coach, talks about recruiting Kurt out of high school. Kurt says Coach Bubb was a genius and the reason he went to Clarion. He calls him a drill sergeant. Kurt was 19 and beating guys that were Olympians. Kurt was shorter than the other heavyweights and didn’t weigh as much. He was a new breed that used technique and quickness.

-His senior year at Clarion he faced defending champion, Sylvester Terkay, in the National Championship. Terkay is here as says he won over half his matches by pin-fall. “That was my thing. I pinned a lot of people.” Terkay was 260 lbs and a Greek God. He smashed smaller guys and this was billed as David vs. Goliath. Sylvester is 6’6” 270 while Kurt is 6’0” 200. Great stuff from Kurt and Sylvester as they talk about the match and what they were thinking and trying to do. Sylvester says Kurt hit him with a fake and then take down with 13 seconds left that gave him the win. Kurt is a National Champion and says it was the smartest match he ever wrestled. He was ready for The Olympics.

-Kurt graduated college and knew he had 4 years to get ready for The Olympics. He was the #2 guy on the US World Team, but hadn’t figured himself out. He started losing matches and it crushed his confidence. He decided to work out at Fox Catcher. Here we go! There is an entire movie out there and a documentary which I recommend anyone watch. Fox Catcher was a facility in Philly, owned by John du Pont. It was a wrestling club and du Pont recruited the best of the best. He brought in Dave Schultz, who was the main recruiter. Schultz was a World and Olympic Champion. Kurt trained there because Dave Schultz could help him. Kurt says Dave is the greatest wrestler of all time. Dave learned seven languages just to learn how others talked about wrestling. We meet Nancy Schultz, Dave’s wife, who talks about how much Dave respected Kurt. Kurt says Dave was everything he wanted to be and the best coach he ever had. Kurt learned watching film, that he was playing into his opponent’s hands by slowing the match down. He knew he needed to get in the best cardio shape he could. “If I didn’t get tired, I was going to win.” Kurt started working on exhaust training as when he was exhausted, that is when the training started.

-Kurt goes over his insane schedule: 6 mile run in 38 minutes, ten 200 yard hill sprints with someone on his back, then 10 without anyone on his back. They show the hill he would run up, and yeah, it’s rather steep. He would then do drills for 4-5 hours on the mat with 3-4 guys rotating. He would take a 30 minute break and do it again. In the evening he would do plyo and weight training. He was just looking to see how tired he could get his body. There was a purpose to everything he was doing. He trained 3 times a day for 28 days out of 30 for two straight years. He was a machine and one of the best conditioned athletes in the world.

-WPXI 11 NEWS! WOO! Again, Pittsburgh thing! They interview Kurt’s mom as she talks about his crazy training schedule. Kurt is in the Finals of The World Championship in 1994. He faces a wrestler from Germany in the Finals, who pinned Kurt in 38 seconds two years earlier. Kurt is bleeding by the ear as the match heads into OT and the German wrestler is just gassed. He was so tired he was faking injuries to be able to catch his breath, but Angle knew he had him and he gets the decision. Kurt does a back flip to celebrate. He was a World Champion at 27 years old.! Kurt says that win put him on the map and everyone had him as a Gold Medal threat in Atlanta in 96. Kurt says Dave knew Kurt was going to win The Olympic Gold and wanted to help.

-Tragedy hits as Kurt says he left Dave a message at 1 PM to let him know he was coming to Fox Catcher the next day. Three hours later Kurt saw on CNN that Dave Schultz had been murdered by John du Pont. Dave wanted to get out of Fox Catcher, and told everyone the rumors about John weren’t as bad as people say. Again, watch the documentary and the movie. Du Pont shot Schultz in his driveway and then shot him in the back while he was on the ground. His wife ran out and Dave died in her lap. A news interview with Kurt as he breaks down talking about Dave.

-Nancy talks about how Fox Catcher was still paying these elite wrestlers to train. Kurt told them to take him off the payroll as he couldn’t accept blood money. Nancy heard about it, and told Kurt she was starting her own wrestling club. Sponsors started coming to her and she was starting The Dave Schultz Wrestling Club and Kurt was offered to be the first member. Nancy says Kurt accepting was a huge turning point for her and The Club.

-1996 US Open: Kurt says he was dominating his weight class and in the semi-finals he dug for an under hook and got hit with a throw. He couldn’t get his hand over in time and lands right on his face. He could hear a bunch of cracking and crunching in his neck. Kurt got up and couldn’t feel his arms. He was pissed he also gave up points in the match. He kept fighting through, but couldn’t do much. Little by little he started scoring points and somehow pulled out the win. He went over to the trainer and they started cracking his neck which caused a sharp pain down his back and arms. Eight hours after the semis was the finals against Kerry McCoy. Kerry was also one of the best wrestlers The US ever had. Kurt thought about taking a break as second place would get him to the Olympic Trials. He explains the winner of The US Open automatically goes to the Finals of The Olympic Trials. Everyone else wrestles each other and then the winner faces the US Open Winner. Kurt’s coach told him it was worse to just try to get through the qualifying tournament. Kurt didn’t think he could go, but Mark told him to shut-up as he was wrestling. Kurt says Kerry was trying to wrestle and Kurt was doing all he could to not wrestle during the match. Kurt somehow pulls it out and says The US Open is great to win, but it’s part of getting to The Olympics. He now had a month to heal!

-After the tournament he went to a chiropractor, who took an x-ray, and told Kurt he had 4 broken vertebrae. Two of the discs were sticking in his spinal cord and he ran the risk of paralysis. He saw two doctors in Pittsburgh and told them he needed to be ready in 4 weeks. He was told no way and that one bad landing and he could die. Kurt called USA Wrestling and told them of his injury and asked if they could push back the trials. They told him no and Kurt knew he had to get ready. He went to Edinboro (Northern PA) and trained and immediately felt the pain shoot down his arm and he fell to his knees. He met more doctors including Dr. Joseph Maroon (Neurosurgeon), who is part of this documentary. He says his concern is brain and spinal cord. He talks about how Kurt has no neck! Kurt was given 12 different shots of Novocain before each match. SKIP THAT! That’s why he has a Gold Medal I guess! Kurt didn’t want to wait until 2000 because that wasn’t guaranteed. He could do his cardio and weight training but couldn’t train on the mat.

-Olympic Trials: Everyone in the tournament knew Kurt had a broken neck. He talks about Dan Chaid, who made his way through the Tournament and was set to see Angle in the Finals. Dan had no problem taking advantage of an injury and Kurt knew he was going to go for his neck. Nobody is surprised that Kurt did what he had to do to get on the mat that night. “Dan was a bully and he liked to inflict pain.” He goes right for Kurt’s neck and yeah, the video shows him just cranking Kurt by the back on his neck to pull him down. Luckily for Kurt, he couldn’t feel anything and Dan was so focused on the neck, it backfired as he left himself open. Kurt gets the win and says it was as good as he could have wrestled.

-1996 Olympics: Atlanta: Ronda Rousey pops up as I believe she was at these Olympics as well. Man, WWE found Gold in these games with Kurt, Mark Henry, and Ronda (though I guess UFC found her). MUHAMMAD ALI LIGHTING THE TORCH! Kurt talks about walking in for The Opening Ceremonies and when the crowd popped, he thought it was for him until he realized The Dream Team (Basketball) had gotten behind him. HA! “It was a humbling experience. It was actually pretty funny.”

-Hey, here’s Mark Henry! Cool that he was part of this even with his AEW contract. Unless this was filmed years ago. He talks about how everyone was aware Kurt had a broken neck. Kurt says he still had pain in his neck, but it didn’t go down his arms anymore. In Match One he defeated a wrestler from Mongolia 4-0. Next was a 7-foot-tall Cuban and they went 0-0 in regulation and OT. Kurt got a point with 4 seconds left in double OT to win 1-0. He faced a Russian next and was down 3-0 early. Kurt knew the guy was going to stall now and he had to be aggressive. He was able to tie the match and The Russian put his hands on his face, showing he was upset at himself and Kurt had a feeling he was going to give up. They stand back up and Kurt gets a point to win the match 4-3. He says it didn’t need to be pretty and he just wanted a Gold Medal. “I didn’t want money. I didn’t want fame. I wanted a Gold Medal.”

-Gold Medal Match: Kurt faces the most famous Iranian of all time (at that point), Abbas Jadidi. Kurt believes he was the best wrestler in the weight class. Abbas won the World Title, but was suspended for two years for testing positive for an illegal substance. Wrestling is the National Sport in Iran, so you better be ready when you face them on the mat. Kurt was the underdog and says the only chance he had was to get Abbas tired. Kurt just attacked throughout the entire match and there was no scoring. Kurt felt a pop in his groin and thinks it’s a partial tear. Kurt gets his legs caught and gives up a point on purpose to try to get out of the situation. He rode out another try and got the point back with a sweet spin move into a take down. Kurt got better as the match went longer! This is great stuff and I am not even into amateur wrestling, so I can only imagine what someone deep into the sport thinks of this. Abbas was getting gassed, and someone refers to Kurt as “Captain Freaking America.” HELL YEAH! They match went to OT and Kurt was able to get a take down with one ref giving him a point and the other two waiting to see him do something else. The match ended and now it was the ref’s decision. All Kurt could think was “four more years. I have to do this for four more years.” He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop with just a silver. After some drama, the ref raises Kurt’s hand and HE JUST WON A GOLD MEDAL WITH A BROKEN FREAKING NECK! Kurt hugs the ref and falls to his knees and the tears start rolling. This is just so great and I can only imagine how he felt. He says he thought of his Dad and Dave Schultz. He knows Dave would have ran out and put him on his shoulders. Kurt talks about all the work and tragedy during the year and it led to this moment. We see Kurt interviewed after winning and he is in tears. I can’t help but smile watching this! “I love you mom. I did that one for you.” Kurt then puts the Gold Medal around his mom’s neck.

-Kurt appears on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno! Ronda says nobody goes off to win a Gold Medal to be a millionaire, but you think you will have a path for a career. “People usually end up with their Olympic Medal in one hand and their dick in the other.” Cool video of Kurt throwing out the first pitch at Three Rivers for a Pirates’ game. All his focus was The Gold Medal and now what’s next.

-Vince McMahon with his famous shades of gray promo. Kurt is called by Vince McMahon and his first thought was no way. He then watched what pro-wrestlers were doing and he saw the athletic ability (they show Eddie vs. Rey at Halloween Havoc and SHELTON INTO THE SUPERKICK). Kurt says Stone Cold Steve Austin caught his interest. Here is Austin, with two middle fingers to the camera, to talk about the adrenaline of working in front of wrestling fans. Kurt questions why he was so bitter about these guys making all this money. “Why don’t I try it.” I guess we are skipping The ECW story!

-Kurt makes his debut at Survivor Series 2000! Everyone knew Kurt was a stud athlete and Rock says that Kurt won a Gold Medal, but came in with great humility. His first match was against Stasiak in a match where the crowd was chanting, “boring.” Vince told Kurt to get on the mic and yell at the fans to stop booing him. Making Kurt a heel from the start was just brilliant! Flair and Austin talk about amateur wrestlers that can’t stand being on the bottom, but Kurt accepted he had to work his way up the card. It didn’t take long!

-Austin and Rock talk about The Attitude Era! Kurt’s first gimmick was The Olympic hero with his Three I’s. He got pro-wrestling at a pace quicker than anyone had seen at the time. He killed it on the mic and bought into anything thrown at him, including hitting Mae Young with an Angle Slam! He was great at heeling on each city and they bounce around to Kurt and Austin’s comedy hour in 2001 when they were both injured. We jump next to Kurt getting his head shaved by Edge and Rock making fun of him. Next the Rey feud and the classic: “Your a boy, in a man’s world, and I’m a man that loves to play with boys.” That is the other great thing about Kurt. He had no trouble playing himself for a fool. MILK-A-MANIA! YOU SUCK! The best part though, Kurt can go like nobody else in that ring. Austin brings up a cage match Kurt had where he pulled out a moonsault off the top of the cage (against Benoit). JR is here and he calls Kurt a savant at pro-wrestling. They put over Austin/Angle at SummerSlam 2001! Great match, with a crappy ending! Kurt puts over the matches with Eddie, Shawn, Edge, and Brock. He mentions 2006 at No Way Out against Undertaker! Next up he talks about WrestleMania 21 with Shawn: one of my favorite matches of all time! I still watch it several times a year because it’s just insanely awesome. Go watch it!

-Rock says Kurt had an innocence and could poke fun at himself, but was “a bad motherfucker who will Angle Slam you through the fucking mat.” We get a cool 20 second montage of Angle suplexing the crap out of The Rock. Great stuff!

-Giovanna Angle, Kurt’s wife, says she knew nothing of pro-wrestling, but saw Kurt walk in and thought he was so handsome. They went on a date at Applebee’s (funny enough that is where my wife and I went on our first date after meeting on eharmony). They were inseparable from that moment! We see footage of Kurt speaking at their wedding and he talks about his three children and announces another baby is on the way.

-The Rock shifts topics and talks about how pro-wrestling has a dark side. Probably would make for a great TV series. Jim Ross talks about super athletes being so driven they have a fear of failing and that can turn bad. Angle says he had a string of bad luck between 2003 and 2006. In 2003 against Brock (No Way Out) he hits his head off the top buckle and lost feeling in his left arm. He had broken his neck again. Angle saw a doctor (Austin’s doctor) and he recommended fusion like Austin had and that meant 12-15 months of recovery. Angle didn’t want to be out that long as it would take him out of WrestleMania with Brock. Kurt called Vince and told him he was doing WrestleMania no matter what. He wrestled Brock with a broken neck and I remember everyone seemed terrified Kurt might paralyze himself and it was Brock that nearly did it with the infamous botched Shooting Star Press. It still looks awful! Kurt was just so far away and that had no chance! Great match, but man!

-Kurt went home and weighed his options. A doctor got hold of Kurt’s manager and said he could do a surgery that would only put Kurt out for six weeks. Kurt thought it was too good to be true. The surgery was going to cut out the problem and let the neck heal. Austin felt the surgery was just a temporary patch job instead of a fix job.

-Six weeks later Kurt goes back to wrestling and doesn’t think he healed. He takes a chair shot from Brock that breaks his neck again. Instead of swinging from the side, Brock swing the chair over his head and right down on Angle’s head. They do the same surgery again and Angle faces Eddie Guerrero at WrestleMania XX. He takes a suplex and breaks his neck again. That is three broken necks in a little over a year and apparently that was enough for Vince as he took Angle out of the ring. He was told to take 5-6 months off. Kurt breaks his neck again in 2006 and doesn’t even know what matched it happened.

-Kurt talks about the injuries he has had in his career and laughs about knocking out his four front teeth…twice. “That sucked and was a pretty penny.” “Other than that, I’m good.” Giovanna says that she knew Kurt was in pain, but he hid it well. She didn’t put 2 and 2 together until it was too late. Kurt was given opioids after the first next break at No Way Out 2003. Giovanna didn’t want to tell him to stop taking the pills because she knew he was in pain. Kurt talks about building up a tolerance to the medicine, so you have to keep increasing. Austin called Angle and they talked for an hour and Austin could hear the voice slur. He knew what that meant, and Steve was scared for him. Vince saw a change in Angle’s behavior and had JR call. They told Angle to get off the stuff as they knew he had a problem. JR says they have all seen it happen in wrestling, but drug issues aren’t exclusive to pro-wrestling as it is a life issue.

-Kurt says this is where things get tough as he talks about his sister. She was living in Virginia and having money issues. She was taking a lot of drugs as her self value was so poor after having three bad marriages. It drove her to a point she was using drugs and she kept calling Kurt for money. He breaks down as he says he kept sending her money and he found out later, instead of paying bills, she was using it for drugs. She was $35,000 in debt and Kurt told her to move back to Pittsburgh with their mom or he wasn’t going to pay her debt. She moved back home as she had no choice. He paid off the debt and she seemed okay before relapsing again. Kurt told her that if she didn’t get clean, he wasn’t going to talk to her ever. “She didn’t get clean, so for the next eight months I didn’t talk to her. Then she overdosed.” Oh man! Kurt is wrecked talking about this. “I wish I would have talked to her.” Just brutal to watch this. She died of a heroin overdose and the next night Kurt has a 60 minute Iron Man Match with Brock Lesnar. Oh wow! Kurt says he didn’t want to do it, but it took his mind off his sister for that one hour.

-We cut to the cemetery where we see LeAnne Angle’s headstone! Kurt says he was 40 deep into painkillers and started taking more. JR says that Angle’s personality started to change and you could see he was carrying around a burden. Each night he went to bed with 18 pills next to the bed just to have them there when he would wake up in the middle of the night. He made sure he didn’t look messed up or high when he was doing a show, but after the show was fair game. Kurt says within six months he was taking 65 extra strength vicodin a day. When he would run out he would go through the worst withdrawal and that made him do things like steal meds from others. He had a calendar to set up a schedule of when he would call each doctor to get a different script for more pills. He also had a contact in Mexico to get them illegally. The pills became his number one priority. Mary Henry says he respects Kurt like a big brother and it made him angry seeing him shaking. “You’re Kurt Angle.”

-Kurt has a meeting with Vince, who told him to go to rehab as they were worried he was going to die. That is when Kurt asked for his release. We see video of Vince on Byte This talking about Kurt’s release. Vince says some of it is confidential and more than anything it revolves around Kurt’s health. Kurt says he didn’t think he had a problem, and he didn’t want to stop the drugs.

-Kurt heads to TNA and we have TNA footage for this documentary. Cool! Austin: “You have this once in a lifetime talent and now he is down in TNA. TNA isn’t at our level.” Angle vs. Joe footage. Sorry, that first match between the two of them ruled! DON WEST ON COMMENTARY! Kurt says he started drinking alcohol while in TNA so now he was mixing booze and pills. JR says Kurt is lucky he didn’t end up dead during the TNA run. We get home video of Kurt looking pilled out of his mind.

-Kurt is pilled up and has twelves beers in him when he gets pulled over in Pittsburgh. More from WPXI (DAVID JOHNSON…WOOO) as they cover Angle’s legal trouble. It was a big story in this area naturally. Kurt got 4 DUI in 5 years and says he is lucky he didn’t get more. Kurt says his lowest point was after his fourth DUI as he prayed to God and asked what he was doing wrong. He still didn’t think he had a drug problem and it was just bad luck. Kurt called Giovanna from jail and she was pissed. She didn’t want to pick up, but did and asked Kurt why he got in trouble again. She told Kurt to get to rehab or she can’t stay with him anymore. She breaks down telling the story and how Kurt didn’t want the kids to see him in this light. That was finally the wake up call Kurt needed.

-Kurt says his dad did the same with his alcohol as he would isolate himself to drink. Kurt didn’t want to be like that and he didn’t want to lose his wife or his kids. He says getting sober and clean was the toughest thing he has ever done. Think about who is saying this and what that really means! He describes what it feels like in great detail and says it is the worst feeling and it feels like it lasts forever. Withdrawal lasted five days and he felt like he was dying. He is scared to death to go through that again.

-Kurt says the hardest part was worrying he couldn’t stay clean when he got out of rehab. He was walking on egg shells around the house as he didn’t know how to deal with things like the baby crying while not on pills. He had knee surgery and his wife made sure he wasn’t given any pain pills. Angle fought her on it as he wanted her to monitor and she told him no. She told Kurt he had to find a way to figure it out. Kurt says his only trigger is the pain and he does all he can to maintain his body. He does maintenance to keep himself off the pills. He learned to tolerate his pain and his wife had to slowly get him back to being a husband and father. He missed out on his first daughter’s life because he was only home 4-5 days and was on pills. He was clean and spent more time with his children. He knows he has too much on the line and this is the first time he doesn’t have himself first. Giovanna doesn’t think he will ever take a pill again because Kurt is so happy with his new self. We get a cute video of Kurt’s youngest saying “dada” for the first time. The Rock says he has a lot of friends and family that have failed and triumphed over drug addiction and he always had hope that Kurt would overcome, and he is very proud of his friend.

-WWE Hall of Fame: Kurt returns home to The WWE and gets inducted into The Hall of Fame. Back to the top as Kurt says he wants to be remembered for what he was able to accomplish instead of the mistakes he made. We see Kurt getting The Gold Medal placed around his neck in 1996. Henry: “There aren’t a lot of people that can say they wold a Gold Medal with a broken neck. In fact there is nobody.” Ric Flair puts over Angle and calls him a friend. “It makes my story look very lame.” JR notes Kurt will always be battling and fighting to focus on the good in his life. He says it is never too late to save your life and that’s what Kurt did. Kurt says he is a fighter and that’s what he wants people to remember. We get a closing shot of a bloody Kurt Angle climbing the cage and hitting the moonsault on Desmond Wolfe (Nigel McGuiness) in TNA. Huh, they just closed a WWE documentary with TNA footage.

-We get photos with captions letting us know Kurt retired after two more years with WWE. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, and kids including a newly adopted son, Joseph. Most importantly Kurt has been sober for seven years.

-Credits roll to bring this one to a close.

-This was fantastic and an emotional roller coaster. What was so enthralling was they spent just a brief time on his pro-wrestling career as that wasn’t the main story. The WWF run was just a synopsis with some high points and didn’t even mention any of his Championship wins. This was the story of Kurt Angle the person and his drive that turned into addiction and then his redemption. The Pittsburgh stuff is going to be more enjoyable for someone like me, but again that is only a small portion of what we got here. The first hour is all about building towards Kurt winning The Olympic Gold. No matter what he accomplished in WWE or TNA, nothing will top winning a Gold Medal (as far as his athletic career). They obviously could have touched on his marriage to Karen and the issues with Jeff, but I can see why that wasn’t brought up. Kurt has moved on and credit to his wife for taking a stand and forcing Kurt to get the help he needed. Kurt being sober for seven years is amazing and he obviously has to continue to work with that each day. All the talking heads were great and it was nice to see JR and Mark Henry here and getting The Rock shows how much he respects and loves Kurt. On first view, I would put this one above the recent Cody and Flair documentaries from Peacock. This was like an extended Dark Side of The Ring with better production values and a full tape library to use. Credit to them for getting TNA footage as well. This is a must watch and be prepared to take in some heavy stuff. Kurt and his wife left themselves open here and deserve respect for talking about all this. Credit to everyone involved with this project. Thanks for reading!