Joe Rogan Experience #2036 - Kurt Angle

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) We're up with, uh, the greatest pro-wrestling fan in the history of the world, Tony Hinchcliffe, and the great and powerful Kurt Angle.

   4. KAKurt Angle0:18

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      It's an honor, sir. Thank you for being here, man.

   6. KAKurt Angle0:21

      Thanks for having me on, Joe.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      Dude, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. You ... What you did in the Olympics with a broken neck is just nothing short of insane.

   8. KAKurt Angle0:30

      Yeah, y-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:30

      How did you do that?

   10. KAKurt Angle0:32

       I didn't have a choice. I mean, uh, what happened was I got thrown on my head, uh, in the first round of the Olympic Trials.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:36

       Pull that microphone up close to you. There you go.

   12. KAKurt Angle0:38

       What happened was I got thrown on my head the first round of the Olympic Trials, and I broke my neck and I didn't know it, so I kept wrestling.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       (laughs)

   14. KAKurt Angle0:45

       My arms were numb, and, and my neck was in excruciating pain, and I wrestled through to semis and won, and then I had to go on to the finals and wrestle, and I won, I won there. So I won the first round of the Olympic Trials with my neck broken. I went home the next day, and I went to my doctor, and he took an MRI of my neck. He said, "You have four discs," or, "four broken vertebrae and two discs sticking directly in your spinal cord." He said, "You can't wrestle anymore. You're done."

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:08

       (exhales loudly)

   16. KAKurt Angle1:09

       And I was devastated, man. I, I, I didn't know what to do. I, I figured I better get a second opinion.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       (laughs)

   18. KAKurt Angle1:14

       So I, I went to another doctor and he said basically the same thing, but he said, "When is the next round of the trials?" I said, "Six weeks." He said, "You know what? I might be able to get you ready by then." I said, "Well, what's your plan?" He said, "Well, we're gonna ... We're not, you're not gonna be able to train much. You're not g- You're gonna have to let your neck rest and heal for the next six weeks and it won't be completely healed, but it'll be healed enough that you can still go, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have a doctor travel with you, and this doctor's gonna stick you with 12 shots of Novocain in your neck five minutes before each one of your matches."

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:44

       (laughs)

   20. KAKurt Angle1:44

       He said, "Therefore, you won't feel the pain, you'll forget your neck is broken, and you'll wrestle more freely." Uh, but, but he said, "I'm warning you, an hour after your matches are over, you're gonna be in excruciating pain from the abuse your neck takes during those matches." And he said, "Are you okay with this?" And I said yes, and it worked.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:59

       Wow.

   22. KAKurt Angle2:00

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:00

       What a decision to make.

   24. KAKurt Angle2:02

       (laughs) Yeah. I didn't have a choice. I mean, uh, it was no guarantee I was gonna make the Olympic team, uh, in 2000 or 2004. This is my one time. This is my one shot.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:11

       Imagine those guys you beat-

   26. KAKurt Angle2:13

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:13

       ... realizing a guy with a fucking broken neck just kicked my ass. (laughs)

   28. KAKurt Angle2:17

       (laughs) I never thought about that.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       They're like, "Not only did he beat me, not only did he win, he won with a broken neck." Amazing.

   30. KAKurt Angle2:26

       Yeah. So I went to the Olympics and we did the same thing there.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Wow. …

   1. KAKurt Angle15:00

      was like, "Brock, are you okay?" He said, "I think so." And so, I said, "I'm gonna pick you up. I want you to give me the F5. Can you do it?" He said, "I think so."

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      Wow.

   3. KAKurt Angle15:09

      Right here. And you know what?

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:10

      You're grabbing his neck.

   5. KAKurt Angle15:11

      Yep.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      That's what's so crazy.

   7. KAKurt Angle15:12

      (laughs) I know.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      You're grabbing his neck and he just landed on it.

   9. KAKurt Angle15:15

      You know what? He didn't hurt his neck at all. He, he got a concussion.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:18

       What?

   11. KAKurt Angle15:18

       He got a concussion.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:19

       He didn't hurt his neck? (laughs)

   13. KAKurt Angle15:20

       No. No. He doesn't have a neck.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:22

       That's so crazy.

   15. KAKurt Angle15:24

       Yeah. His-

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:24

       It's so crazy-

   17. KAKurt Angle15:25

       His neck might be bigger than mine.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:26

       ... that he came back from that.

   19. KAKurt Angle15:26

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:27

       So crazy that he came back from that.

   21. KAKurt Angle15:30

       And that was it. I was relieved. I got to drop the title and get my surgery the next day.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       Wow.

   23. KAKurt Angle15:36

       Yeah. I was supposed to win. That, that, that wasn't supposed to happen. Um, they wanted me to have a nice, long, long title reign, but I broke my neck. Brock broke my neck the month before in a wrestle match, and, uh, so, uh, I had to, uh ... I went to the doctor and he said, "You have to have surgery." So I de- I told Vince, "I'm not gonna wrestle at WrestleMania." And, uh, I wasn't gonna do it, and I was gonna have surgery right away, and I went ... My next door neighbors, and this kid, he, he has Downs Syndrome, really nice kid. His name's Johnny, and he said, "Kurt, uh, I heard you're not wrestling at WrestleMania." And he gives me this magazine, it's DirecTV, and I'm on the cover with Brock. He said, "I really wish you would be able to wrestle." And I thought, "You know what? I'm gonna wrestle to lose the title to Brock on Smackdown." That's what Vince wanted me to do. He wanted Brock just to kick me in the gut, give me an F5, and beat me. I said, "I might as well just go to WrestleMania and tough it out."

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:28

       (laughs)

   25. KAKurt Angle16:28

       You know? Go ahead and do it with a broken neck, and you know, uh, wa- ... Is it gonna make it worse? If it does, it does, but, you know ... But, but back then, there were no liabilities. Now (laughs) you can't do that stuff.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:38

       (exhales)

   27. KAKurt Angle16:38

       You know? There's no way the WWE's gonna clear you to go out there with a broken neck and perform.

   28. THTony Hinchcliffe16:43

       Did, uh ... How did Brock break your neck the month before that?

   29. KAKurt Angle16:46

       He ... I was on his back. I was ... I had him in a chokehold. I had him in a chokehold, and I was on his back, and he was on the other side of the ring. He's really strong, and he could run really fast. So I'm on his back and he starts running to the other side of the ring, and he goes to turn to ... so I, I hit the turnbuckle.

   30. THTony Hinchcliffe17:05

       Mm-hmm.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   So many guys do.…

   1. KAKurt Angle30:00

      is, the last two weeks, because I spent a month in rehab, the last two weeks I was so nervous that I was gonna fuck up again. Like, I, I, I literally didn't want to leave rehab. (laughs) I was scared that I was gonna go back to it right when I got out.

   2. GCGuest co-host30:14

      So many guys do. It's so crazy.

   3. KAKurt Angle30:15

      Y- you ... that's why, like, I hear all these stories and I'm like, "Oh, it's gonna happen to you too, man." And, uh, you know, but, but, uh, the one thing that I kept, uh, going across in my mind was, "Don't do withdrawal." (laughs) I don't want to do that again.

   4. GCGuest co-host30:29

      (exhales)

   5. KAKurt Angle30:29

      And I know if I start taking them, I'm gonna have to g- experience that again and I don't want to.

   6. GCGuest co-host30:33

      It was that bad?

   7. KAKurt Angle30:34

      It was that bad.

   8. GCGuest co-host30:35

      What is it like? Like what is withdrawal feeling like?

   9. KAKurt Angle30:36

      Um, okay, you're sweating because you're hot and you're cold at the same time.... you're shitting your pants, you're throwing up, um, uh, you can't think straight. Uh, your body's shaking, uh, you're, you're getting hot sweats, cold sweats. Uh, everything's... You feel like you don't have anything inside of you. No insides, no organs, nothing. You feel like you're hollow. It's just the craziest thing, it's the most painful thing I've ever gone through. And, you know, I'm, I'm sure people have been in a lot more pain than that with certain things they've had done to themselves, but, uh, for me, that was the worst.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       What's crazy is, when you think about how mentally strong you are, how difficult it is for you to go through that.

   11. KAKurt Angle31:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:17

       Now, think of the average person, you know?

   13. KAKurt Angle31:20

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:20

       Have you seen that Painkiller show on Netflix?

   15. KAKurt Angle31:22

       I watched some of it, yeah. Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:25

       (sighs) Fucking what they did to this country is so crazy.

   17. KAKurt Angle31:28

       Oh, I know. Uh, they, they were advertising it, "Hey, this is the best drug since whatever," and, you know, "This will keep you, uh, you know, keep you moving every day and give you a healthy lifestyle." Meanwhile, they didn't tell you that they're opiates and they're addictive-

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:42

       Yeah.

   19. KAKurt Angle31:42

       ... and that they, they could kill you.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       Yeah.

   21. KAKurt Angle31:44

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       The one to t- start and the one to stay with. What was the, the slogan that they used, Jamie? Do you remember? We talked to Peter Berg, who made that show.

   23. KAKurt Angle31:52

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       And, you know, he had to, obviously he had to do a lot of research on the Sackler family and what they did and how they engineered this and how they knew that... They, I mean, people weren't just taking painkillers back then, it wasn't a normal thing.

   25. KAKurt Angle32:05

       Right, right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:05

       You know? Like when I was a ki- We talked about this at... When I was a kid, for someone to take heroin was crazy.

   27. KAKurt Angle32:11

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:11

       When you found out someone was taking heroin-

   29. KAKurt Angle32:12

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:12

       ... you're like, "Jesus Christ, Mike's taking heroin?"
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      they go to college, they, they get a, they get their medical degree, they go to medical school, they do the residency. Everything is by the book. You gotta do what they say to do.

   2. KAKurt Angle45:08

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:08

      You know? And then you're working for a hospital which I... This is how naive I was. I didn't even know that most hospitals are privately owned. Like, I didn't know that they were for-profit businesses that try to push medic- medicine on people.

   4. KAKurt Angle45:21

      I didn't either.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:21

      I thought they're just here to help you.

   6. KAKurt Angle45:23

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:23

      Like, wouldn't that be the best thing? Like, if hospitals were just places where the doctors get paid well because they're really good at their job-

   8. KAKurt Angle45:29

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      ... but what they're trying to do is make you better.

   10. KAKurt Angle45:31

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:31

       No, those hospitals are trying to make as much money as possible. They wanna keep you in as much as possible, prescribe as much medication as possible.

   12. KAKurt Angle45:37

       (laughs) You know what? I'll give you an example of that. It's not really drug-related but, uh, I went to a hospital, I had pneumonia and, uh, they, um, they accidentally gave me the hospital bill of everything that they used on me and, uh, all my... Like, like, if I had like a, a ginger ale, diet ginger ale, it was a little six ounce, those little ones. Um, I had like, uh, 20 of 'em while I was there. They were charging $12 for each one of those. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:06

       (laughs)

   14. KAKurt Angle46:06

       They, they had on the bill, like, the linen, what the linen cost and this and that. The linen was $200, just the bed sheets.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:13

       Wow.

   16. KAKurt Angle46:14

       Like, uh, like they... I saw all this stuff on this bill. The bill ended up being, for five days, it was $165,000.00.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:21

       Wow.

   18. KAKurt Angle46:22

       How could you spend $165,000 just laying in a hospital bed? You know, they're serving three meals a day.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:28

       Drinking ginger ale.

   20. KAKurt Angle46:29

       Yeah. That's it. I mean, $167,000. It's ridiculous.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:34

       It's business.

   22. KAKurt Angle46:35

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:35

       That's what's crazy about business, right? Businesses, people just wanna make the most money possible.

   24. KAKurt Angle46:40

       (laughs) That's crazy.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:41

       Fucking crazy-

   26. KAKurt Angle46:42

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:42

       ... when it's, when it's involving pills and people's health.

   28. KAKurt Angle46:44

       Yeah. God.

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:47

       So how many years have you been clean now?

   30. KAKurt Angle46:49

       12. 12 years.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:08:34

   Yeah. …

   1. KAKurt Angle1:00:00

      it, it's, it... I g- I understand why, you know, a lot of wrestlers have, uh, fell into depression, um, that, uh, start taking drugs, uh, ended their lives a lot quicker than, you know, other, um, professions. Um, but, but it, it is. It's, it's a very, it's a very addictive, uh, form of entertainment. I mean, once you're in it, you love it, and you never wanna leave it. And, uh, the problem is, everybody gets to an age where they can't do it anymore. So you-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      Yeah.

   3. KAKurt Angle1:00:33

      ... you have to come to grips with it. If you don't, you know, you're probably not gonna survive much longer.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

      Well, look at Ric Flair.

   5. KAKurt Angle1:00:38

      Ric... (laughs) You know what? He's living the dream. He, he's still Ric Flair every day.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

      He is Ric Flair.

   7. KAKurt Angle1:00:44

      He's just not wrestling in the ring. He's just doing it in streets everywhere, you know? Woo!

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

      It is unbelievable.

   9. THTony Hinchcliffe1:00:48

      He's like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       Tell the story about how you were partying with him the other day.

   11. THTony Hinchcliffe1:00:51

       Dude, so-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       (laughs)

   13. THTony Hinchcliffe1:00:53

       ... so he's in town, and, uh, he hits me up on a Sunday at like noon. He's like, "Let's, let's hit the streets tonight, show me the city. Let's, uh, have some drinks and pick up some babes." I'm like, "Okay."

   14. KAKurt Angle1:01:06

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

       (laughs)

   16. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:07

       He, he goes, "I'm done with this comic book signing at 5:00 PM." I'm like, "Sweet, I'll meet you at 5:00." About a half hour later, he goes, "I'm gonna be done with the comic book signing at 1:30."

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       (laughs)

   18. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:18

       (laughs)

   19. KAKurt Angle1:01:18

       That's Ric. (laughs)

   20. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:20

       So I go, I go-

   21. KAKurt Angle1:01:21

       He shafted the feds three and a half hours.

   22. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:24

       I go-

   23. KAKurt Angle1:01:24

       Oh, man. (laughs)

   24. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:26

       (laughs) I go, "Okay. I'll meet you. Uh, where do you want me to meet you?" He's like, "At this hotel bar." I go to this hotel. I, I say... I find the first, like, security guy I know. I go, "Where's the bar?" And he points like that. It was just right over his shoulder. And I just see that white, flanking hair.

   25. KAKurt Angle1:01:42

       (laughs) Yeah.

   26. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:43

       And there are, on each side of him, three and three, just flight attendants, fucking nurses.

   27. KAKurt Angle1:01:50

       (laughs)

   28. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:51

       I mean, just a gaggle of geese. And I'm walking up, and I'm like, "This is, like, what you... what I've heard about forever."

   29. KAKurt Angle1:01:59

       (laughs)

   30. THTony Hinchcliffe1:01:59

       I'm, like, walking up to, like, a music video, or the story-

Episode duration: 2:34:44