Olympic champ has fun with bad-guy role
By Brett Friedlander
Staff writer
Kurt Angle sat at a table smiling, posing for pictures and signing autographs for what seemed like a never-ending line of adoring fans Tuesday.
The lovefest went on for more than an hour before someone in the crowd decided to spice things up with a chant heard often during the World Wrestling Entertainment's Smackdown! series.
"Hey, Angle," the unseen fan shouted out. "You suck."
As if on cue, the chiseled 6-foot-2, 220-pound wrestler rose from his seat with a menacing look on his face. Then just as quickly, he made eye contact with the offending individual, winked and broke into a playful smile.
Angle might play the part of the bad guy on television. But as he showed the nearly 2,000 people that came to meet him at Lafayette Ford on Tuesday - some from as far away as Georgia - he's not really such a bad guy outside the ring.
Even though he was unable to perform because of injury, Angle was one of the headliners Tuesday night at the WWE's taping of Smackdown! at the Crown Coliseum.
"The fans play just as much a part in the show as I do, and it is a show," Angle said. "I wink at them, they wink at me and we have a good time with it."
"They say stuff and I react to it. It's a lot of fun."
Even with the sweltering heat and the long waits, everyone seemed to be in good spirits at Tuesday's promotion - which also included fellow wrestlers Matt Hardy, Lita, Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie.
The happiest of the lot was probably John Henley, who arrived around 6:30 a.m. to find that he and his wife were the first in line for autographs.
"I had the day off and we've got tickets to the show (Tuesday), so we decided to come up a little early," said Henley, a hard-core fan who lives in Augusta, Ga. "I wanted to see Lita and I knew there would be a long line. But I didn't realize I would be the first one."
Angle and the other wrestlers didn't arrive until just before 10 a.m.
By then, the parking area beside the dealership resembled, well, a used car lot as people flocked to get a glimpse and a smile from their wrestling favorites.
"It was worth every minute of the wait," said Delores Morrison, whose 4-year-old daughter, Dominique, was rewarded with a kiss on the head from Angle.
As much fun as the wrestler said it is to play the bad guy in the WWE's soap-opera style story lines, it was clear from his performance Tuesday that the white hat fits him just as well.
It's a role he played to perfection at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, when he became a national hero by defeating Abbas Jadidi of Iran to win the gold medal in the 220-pound weight class.
The victory, which came by the narrowest of margins, continues to define his career - despite all the fame and fortune he's collected in five years as a professional.
To this day, he signs his autographs: Kurt Angle, Olympic champion.
"The Olympics was the all-time best," Angle said. "If I had to trade in one or the other, I would give (pro wrestling) up in a minute. When you win at the Olympics, you're the best in the world."
As much as he said he would give it up, Angle has grown to enjoy the celebrity that comes with being one of the biggest names in wrestling entertainment.
He first learned how intoxicating fame is shortly after the Olympics.
"I got a lot of exposure," he said. "I was on (Jay) Leno, (David) Letterman, the Today Show. But it was very short. Within six months, I'd fallen off the face of the earth."
In an effort to get back into the public eye, Angle first turned to broadcasting - even though he had no experience in the field.
He was given his own show, called "The Angle on Sports," in his hometown of Pittsburgh. But it quickly went down for the count.
Shortly after the show was canceled, he decided to enter the ring, this time as a professional.
"It was perfect," Angle said. "I wanted to be an entertainer and I wanted to get back into the ring and this allowed me to do both."
As Angle quickly learned, though, the wrestling part wasn't as easy as he thought it was going to be.
Within the past two years, he's been sidelined three times by a series of neck and leg injuries. His current malady, which has him wearing a brace on his left leg, has kept him out of the ring since WrestleMania XX on March 14.
Angle said that he has already been cleared to begin wrestling again. But he doesn't want to rush his return and risk another injury.
As the occasional grimaces that crossed his face Tuesday suggested, the matches might be scripted, but the pain isn't.
"This is a lot more jarring," he said. "Olympic-style wrestling is more on your joints. Here, it's more head and neck stuff. We're putting our bodies on the line every night.
"We've raised the bar, but that's not necessarily a good thing."
Angle said that in the past two years, 11 wrestlers - including himself - have undergone neck surgery.
That attrition rate, Angle said, will end up hurting the WWE if something isn't done to stop it.
"Back in the '80s, it was all about wrestling moves. Now it's more stunt work," he said. "I think we need to back up and go back to basics.
"I think (professional wrestling) should be about telling stories more than hitting people over the head with chairs."
Still, the popularity of shows such as Smackdown! suggest otherwise, especially in Fayetteville.
That was evident from the crowd that came to see Angle on Tuesday - though not everyone seemed so excited to be there.
As a woman holding a baby leaned over to pose for a picture with the hulking wrestler, her child began to cry.
That prompted Angle to furrow his clean-shaven brow and put on his scowl. "I'm such a bad man," he said.
Then he turned to the woman, smiled and gave her a wink.
Staff writer Brett Friedlander can be reached at friedlanderb@fayettevillenc.com or 486-3513.
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