10 Wrestlers Who Inflicted The Most Damage To Their Bodies
7. Kurt Angle
In which one of the three I's was significantly more credible than another.
Angle wasn't an unintelligent wrestler. He knew how to tell a story as sharply as he grasped that, as a square-jawed real athlete with a very dorky quality, he had to send himself up in the age of the anti-hero. But he was more intense than anything else. It was his signature trait, and he was more intense than any pro wrestler ever.
An incredible, prodigious bumper, he worked an astonishingly physical style by traditional WWF standards, driving himself to the canvas higher on his neck than most. As impressive as it was for Angle to willingly fall on his back, which would have appeared to be counterintuitive, given his amateur background, he was still a real athlete at his core. The competitive edge never dulled, and in a predetermined world, he competed with himself to deliver a better performance. The escalation was unreal. He executed moonsaults from cages as part of this drive. It was also terrifying; he may have no-sold the sheer, unhinged commitment to becoming a wrestling machine by masking the pain with medication, but his body transformed to a disturbing extent.
The atrophied arms, the banana posture, the neck that never seemed not to be broken, the bruised black genitalia: Angle went so hard that he will likely remain in rough shape forever.
He went so hard that, by his own admission, forever felt at one time like it wouldn't last very long at all.