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Dave Scherer: All right, Mike Johnson I turn it over to you buddy.
Mike Johnson: All right, well Kurt, you mentioned your business. You've got Physically Fit, the new protein snacks, and I know this is a venture you've kind of ventured into before, you had Angle Foods for a while. Let's talk a little bit about this new company that you've put together and about the protein snacks, where people can find them, let's talk a little bit about what you're doing outside of the pro wrestling circle right now since that's your main focus.
Kurt Angle: You know what? I started a company called Physically Fit Nutrition and we have a product called "Chicken Snacks." We also have a plant protein snack called "Smart Snacks". We were able to engineer chicken breast into a Chex mix texture, a snack that we flavored with you know, Honey Barbecue, Sriracha, Cinnamon Swirl, there's Buffalo and Blue Cheese, there's a bunch of them...pizza flavored, and they're spectacular, we hit it out of the park with it and they're doing pretty well. We private label for Amazon and we do our own products. We're selling in stores. We're also online at PhysicallyFit.com and it's a great product. The only reviews we've gotten on it are all 4 and 5 stars so we're really happy with it and we're just hoping that people will start picking it up and you know, buying the product. It's excellent, I use it every day, I love it. It's high protein, low carbs, low fat, very good for you, and they taste phenomenal.
Mike Johnson: Well I had the brown cinnamon sugar swirl one this week and I was amazed at how good it was. Like you have an idea of what you think it's going taste like and a lot of times with snacks like these, they're a little bit on the bland side to be honest, and this was like, you would have thought you were having something like a sugar, salty treat sitting in a movie theater or something. I was pleasantly surprised so, like you said, PhysicallyFit.com. Obviously, with your background as an Olympic Gold Medalist, I have to think there's all sorts of business ventures that post-WWE you can go into, like to this day I'm shocked there's never been a Kurt Angle sneaker, sort of like a Michael Jordan sneaker, things like that. Are there other ventures that you're interested in doing - I think every wrestling fan wants to hear, "Oh I'm going come back and wrestle so and so" and maybe that might happen, maybe it won't but I have to think Kurt Angle in 2020 is looking well beyond pro wrestling. What other sort of ventures or projects are you looking into? You mentioned Hollywood a little while ago, but in your periphery, what would you like to focus on going forward?
Kurt Angle: Well ironically I'm doing a sneaker and a wrestling shoe.
Mike Johnson: [laughs] Go figure.
Kurt Angle: Rolling out in 2021 so, they're really cool. I actually have a meeting at 3 o'clock today to oversee the final project, the pitch that they gave me, so I'm excited to look at the final product and we're going to end up selling it in January 2021 so I'm starting with the sneakers and I'm going with the wrestling shoes later on that year.
Mike Johnson: All right well I'll say right now you're already booked to come back and talk about those in January...
Kurt Angle: [laughs] All right!
Mike Johnson: ..so whenever you want to talk about them.
Kurt Angle: You got it.
Mike Johnson: You mentioned obviously, when people, when you talk about your career, even before pro wrestling with the Olympics, your neck has been...the health of your neck has been the theme of your career in a lot of ways. You mentioned having multiple surgeries - a lot of other talents took the year off and did the neck fusion surgery. Why did you never go that route and now that you're older do you regret not just pausing for a year and having the more heavy duty intrusive surgery?
Kurt Angle: Two reasons - one, the doctor that did my surgery told me that I would have to have three level fusion, that means I would have had to retire. You can't have more than two levels, a doctor will not clear you to wrestle if you have more than two levels fused in your neck, so I didn't have a choice, I had to go and get...I got the repair instead of the fusion, so I continued to do that throughout my career - repair, repair, repair, now I'm at the point where my neck is starting to fuse together on its own, and I gotta do a lot of maintenance now. I also have, what do you call it, a tumor in my neck, that's sitting on some nerves, infhave to get that taken out, I have an appointment this Thursday with a doctor so that's also been a problem for me, it actually grew twice as big in the last three ears, so they need to get that out of there. If they do that hopefully my neck will feel better. [Note: Angle did have that appointment and they are working on a treatment for that issue.]
Mike Johnson: All right well obviously we hope for that. One of the things that I think is one of your best gifts to pro wrestling beyond your work in the ring was your autobiography, It's True, It's True. I don't think anyone's ever presented a ground level day by day view of what a grueling lifestyle it is for someone who wants to be the best in collegiate wrestling at the level that you were, because you go through everything from running around Pittsburgh with people on your shoulders to the tragedy of Dave Schultz' murder to the ups and downs of your life - have you ever thought about sitting down and writing a sequel to that with the same sort of intention of what it was like in the day to day grind of professional wrestling, because I feel like with your perspective as an amateur wrestler it would be greatly different, and I know there was some WWE stuff that was touched upon in the first book, but you've gone through so much personally and professionally since, I feel you would have a very unique perspective, especially now that you're not under the WWE umbrella, and you wouldn't have to worry about what their entanglements might be, legally and professionally, to kind of tell your story. Has there ever been any discussion for that?
Kurt Angle: Oh yeah, I started a second book, and I had to stop because I got approached by the production company that did the Foxcatcher documentary, they wanted to do a Kurt Angle documentary, so they've been doing that for the past 3 years. We're just finishing up and I wanted the documentary to come out first before the book.
Mike Johnson: Oh wow.
Kurt Angle: So the documentary, WWE purchased it so I don't know what they're going do with it, I think they're going to sell it to a network and then we're going to go from there. Eventually I will write my second book and it should be a lot more pro wrestling involved but I'm going to make sure the amateur wrestling is in there as well. You'll probably hear a couple of the same stories but you know, I want to get my book together from beginning to end and cover all corners.
Mike Johnson: You mentioned working for Dixie Carter. When you debuted in Impact, it was the first and only time that PWInsider.com crashed because so many people were trying to get on it at the same time.
Kurt Angle: Yeah.
Mike Johnson: What is your memory of that moment where that video played and basically the entire internet melted over the idea of Kurt Angle, who everyone thought was retiring, popping up in TNA wrestling?
Kurt Angle: I was excited, you know, I had my eye on TNA for a good year, and watching AJ and Joe and Stinger do their thing and young guys like James Storm, Bobby Roode and Eric Young...Jay Lethal, Chris Daniels and Kazarian, I wanted to get down there and go with those guys, because I didn't know, what's crazy is, you know, half of them ended up in WWE but they all should have, they were all so good, but I was looking forward to working with those guys, they were incredible workers, and the WWE Universe didn't really hear about them before, so being able to go down there and perform with those guys was a lot of fun. We had a great run, I enjoyed my time in TNA, you know, if the company would have stayed more afloat and didn't run out of money, I don't know if I would have came back in 2017 to WWE, I did like where I was and you know, but I knew the money was running out and I knew they weren't going to be able to offer me the deals they were, so I knew it was time for me to make my final, you know, run in WWE and it worked out OK, it wasn't my...the return I hoped for but at least I got back with the WWE fans and they got to see me one last time there.
Interview Concludes on Page 4!
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