Joe Rogan Experience #2036 - Kurt Angle

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

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.

(laughs)

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

Thanks for having me on, Joe.

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.

Yeah, y-

How did you do that?

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.

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

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.

(laughs)

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."

(exhales loudly)

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

(laughs)

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."

(laughs)

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.