Kurt Angle reflects on wrestling Mick Foley at TNA Victory Road 2009, competing in that match with a groin tear, Mick Foley's conditioning at the time, and more.
Kurt Angle and Mick Foley were two of the major signings in the history of TNA Wrestling during the mid-2000s. While these WWE Hall of Famers never had the opportunity to compete against one another in a WWE setting, Foley and Angle did get to go one-on-one in the headlining bout at TNA Wrestling's Victory Road event in 2009.
Going into that match, neither man was at their best. In the lead-up to that match, Foley openly criticized his own conditioning, and Kurt Angle entered that match with a groin tear. On the latest episode of his podcast, The Kurt Angle Show, the Olympic gold medalist opened up about his injury, how it occurred, and the main event of Victory Road 2009 overall.
"When I was doing the movie [Warrior], we did the fight scenes for about six months. I mean it was a lot of work. We were doing it over and over and over. Joe Egerton got hurt. He hurt his knee. So he was out for two months. So I'm going with his double for a couple of months. Joe comes back, I go with him for two months. Tom Hardy, same thing. Something happened to him, he got sick, and he had to sit out for a while. So all of this was happening and we were just trying to get the movie done," Kurt recalled, when asked about what led to his groin tear. "I was working my butt off. Every day, I was in the octagon, fighting every single day, either wrestling their body double or the or the actor themselves. I shot a double leg and went to lift them, and I popped my groin and tore it and knew right on the spot I was in trouble.
"The trainer came and checked me out," Angle continued. "We finished up that day, and I called TNA, and I said, 'I don't know if I'm gonna be able to go.' They said, 'Do you think you can make it through a 10-minute or 12-minute match? I said yeah, I could probably work around that. So that's probably why they had me do that promo before the pay-per-view where I said the match wouldn't be long because I'm going to take Mick out as soon as I can. I think that was a lot of the reason why I did that promo."
Talking about the actual match, Angle says had he been 100% healthy, he would have been able to work around Mick Foley's physical limitations at that point in his career to create a more memorable match.
"Even with Mick's limitations because of his conditioning and everything, if I was 100% healthy, I could have made the match look a lot better. I would have been able to do a lot more stuff, make Mick look a lot more dominant. I would have been able to make the match much better than it was," Kurt said.
Later in the podcast, Kurt Angle would say that he wishes Mick was in better shape, but due to the condition of both he and Mick Foley, Angle says he was ultimately happy with the end result of the match on that night in 2009.
"I wish Mick was in better wrestling shape. I know he wished he was, but still, it wasn't bad. I was really happy with the match. Especially with me my groin injury, knowing that he didn't have the conditioning that he wanted. I thought the match wasn't shit. I thought it was okay," Kurt said.
Kurt would say he wishes he and Mick Foley could have wrestled when they were both at their peak.
"Don't get me wrong. I wish Mick and I could have wrestled in our prime. At this point in time, Mick was a little bit past his prime. I was still kind of in my prime, but I was injured. Don't get me wrong, Mick can still go. He could still go today," Angle said with a laugh.
Mick Foley has not wrestled since the 2012 WWE Royal Rumble and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.
Kurt Angle would join Mick Foley in the Hall of Fame in 2017 and have his final match at WrestleMania in 2019. Recently, Angle opened up about being willing to do cinematic matches. Read more here.
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