Breaking The Walls Down - It's For The Best Submitted by Chris Dailey on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 at 3:33 PM EST
Breaking The Walls Down
Hello all and welcome back to another edition of Breaking The Walls Down. I’ve returned from vacation and won’t be seeing another one for some time. It has been a while since my last column and some big news has happened, but only one piece of news will be thoroughly discussed here. Yet, we can’t skip Bits and Pieces this week, so let’s get started.
Bits and Pieces
Maybe it’s the lack of tag teams in the WWE or maybe it’s because I’m losing it the older I get, but I like The Highlanders. I like everything about them, except that stupid thing where they put the guys head under the kilt. I really hope The WWE starts rebuilding the tag team division and adds some more quality tag teams that fans can tell are tag teams, not random put together guys.
Hulk Hogan pinned Randy Orton and with that some questions arise. Was it smart for Randy to job to a wrestler who’s all but retired? What will it do for his career? Well, for starters, everyone knew he was going to lose to a legend at some point. He lost to The Undertaker, but The Undertaker is still an active wrestler. I figured he’d lose at some point to an active wrestler and who better than Hogan? Orton’s place right now is a feud with Carlito that will push Carlito towards main-event status and keep Orton in the public’s eye.
Does anyone care about Smackdown anymore? No, I mean really care. Placing a show on Friday nights these days is a death sentence. All I keep hearing people say and all I keep reading from people on-line is that they don’t care. The show is seemingly going nowhere and I wonder how long it will remain on the station.
As I watched RAW last night and saw Mickie James use The Fisherman Suplex, it made me realize how much I miss seeing “Mr. Perfect” Curt Henning in the ring. He was a guy I loved to boo as a kid, but he’s one of those guys that you look back on and say, “Wow, he was something special”. His matches and his mic work were excellent and he always got the right response from the crowd. In the ring, he was what he said he was, and that was perfect.
Speaking of Mickie James, it’s time to redo the Women’s Title. It looks dated and needs a facelift. Seeing Lita hold that belt reminds me of that fact moreso than when James had it. Weird.
And now, onto the column.
It’s For The Best
That’s probably one of the worst lines one can ever say/hear/read, but, more often times than not, it’s the truth. And, in this case, it’s definitely for the best. Last week, as many, if not all, of you know, Kurt Angle was released from his WWE contract. This was done by The WWE in an attempt to make Kurt realize that he needs to gain control of himself in both a physical sense (in terms of healing some severe neck injuries) and of his personal life (his pending divorce with his wife whom is carrying their second child). Kurt is currently suffering from a torn groin, lingering neck problems, and (from reports that have been all over the Internet) Kurt needed pain-killers to get back into the ring each night.
The two injuries are severe and needed to be treated as such. The pain-killers are another part of the equation that I will discuss shortly. However, Kurt, as many are saying, only new how to give 140%, he didn’t want to give any less. While that was great for us fans, as we knew Kurt’s matches would always be excellent, the toll it took on his body was brutal. Kurt’s nagging neck injury that he originally sustained years ago, apparently painfully lingers on to this very day. He’s has the miracle neck surgery that Scott Hall had, but that miracle neck surgery hasn’t been anything more than a stopgap. Kurt, seemingly, needs some form of extensive surgery, not unlike the surgery Chris Benoit and Steve Austin had. Now, who knows, maybe his neck will heal and allow him to return relatively or completely pain free. However, that doesn’t appear all that likely. Kurt, according to IMDB.com, turns 38 this coming December. He’s not 28 (my age) when he won the Olympics. He’s entering that phase where his body will need more time to recuperate, regardless of how physically fit he is. Don’t get me wrong, he will have a huge advantage over anyone his age with rehabilitation, but it will be a tough road for him.
As for Kurt’s torn groin, that’s a messy situation. There are different types of groin injuries. Regarding Kurt’s case, it seems pretty serious. It’s something that will heal over time, but Kurt has to give it that time. He has to allow it time to heal with the help of doctors and therapy. The problem for Kurt his, he doesn’t take that time and this is why he was released from his contract. Kurt has to understand what he’s doing to himself. We, as fans, have to understand what it was taking for him to get out there and give us an incredible performance. Each time he did that, more and more pressure was put on his neck, more and more pain would arise. Each time he went out there and moved around, his groin stretched a bit more, agonizingly in ways that weren’t meant to happen. And, each time he went out there (according to reports), he needed pain-killers to do it.
Pain-killers are a nasty thing, ask Shane Douglas if you don’t believe me. Your body becomes so used to them, that once you attempt to come off of them, you go through some serious detox periods. Kurt’s body is already wracked with pain and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. He needs to get off of those pills so he can fully understand the entire scope of his injuries. One might say he already does since he’s on them, but I would argue that he may not completely know, since his body’s need for the pain-killers may be making his pain that much worse.
In addition, Kurt has wife and a child with a second child on the way. However, it’s been said that he and his wife are getting a divorce. It may be possible, through this time off, that Kurt will be able to work things out with his wife. From all accounts that I read, it’s very difficult to maintain a healthy marriage while being a professional wrestler. Wrestlers would often say that Owen Hart was a beacon of hope for them. I’m hoping that someone can help Kurt and his wife through these tough times so Kurt can be happy once again personally and be healthy once again.
But, that is the sticking point, Kurt was so consumed with returning to the ring and doing whatever was necessary to attain that goal that he sacrificed his own well-being to get there. The WWE made a wise decision in releasing Kurt from his contract and publicly stating that they would welcome him back when he his physically and mentally healthy. Yet, those are the key words, physically and mentally healthy. When Eddie Guerrero passed away, it was said that another WWE wrestler was heading down a path that could lead to his death, as well. At the time many believed that person to be Ric Flair because of everything that was happening to him in his personal life and that very well may have been the person they were hinting at, but it also could have been Kurt. Thankfully, their grim forecast may have been averted; however, that has yet to be seen.
Kurt must now take the time he has and enjoy life. He’s free of everything work-related and can pursue his betterment through physical and mental rehabilitation. Kurt Angle is one of my personal favorite wrestlers, but this may be it for him. I severely doubt it, but Kurt may decide it’s best for him to retire from active wrestling and pursue something within WWE or take an on-air role. Heck, he may come back in a Mick Foley-type fashion and work a much lighter schedule. It’s unknown at this point. But, what definitely is well-known is the fact that Kurt needs to rest and relax now. That’s often the hardest thing for someone like Kurt to do, but it’s for the best.
