Amateur wrestling, you can go by instinct. Pro wrestling, you have to memorize, and you have to go by what moves you said you were going to do. Sometimes you have to feel the crowd and do the moves at the right time and know the timing and tell a good story.
You've got to stay in pretty good shape to be a pro wrestler, and all the TNA wrestlers get a bit nervous when I wrestle them because they're afraid I'll tire them out, but the Olympics is a whole different level.
You go from Olympic wrestling into pro wrestling, and it's a very difficult transition, but if you make it, you can earn a great living while at the same time giving amateur wrestling a lot of exposure by being on TV every week. Fans know where you came from.
The hard part for me was being an Olympic gold medalist and having that persona; you don't see too many Olympic gold medalists go into acting. It's actually even more difficult. You're not taken very seriously, and you're looked at in a different light, so it was kind of hard for me to go straight from Olympics into acting.
I've been chastised for going into mixed martial arts and backing out. But the reason I backed out was the terms - they wanted me ready to fight in four weeks, but you've got to be out of your mind. So I decided to go back to my roots, back to wrestling.
I really have been trying to get in movies with smaller parts, just to get myself in there and get more practice, and not have to take the big lead. In 'Dylan Dog' I was one of the co-stars, and I had a pretty good part in that movie.
I love Vince McMahon. He came up with the Kurt Angle character. He ran with it, and then I was able to run with it. I thank him for the opportunity he gave me. Vince McMahon was one of my best friends, period.
When Jack Swagger copies my Ankle Lock and Randy Orton does my Angle Slam, it's disrespectful. I didn't come up with the Ankle Lock; Ken Shamrock came up with the Ankle Lock, but I waited until he retired to do the Ankle Lock.
The Olympics is not really about the sport, it's about the story behind the person. You keep the sport relatively simple to understand - let the fans understand that a takedown is 1 point, a turn is 2, a pin and the match is over. Keep it simple, and keep the story on the individual.
In Canada, you can't even have a barbecue in your backyard without being attacked by a moose or even a grizzly bear. Then again, the grizzlies don't beat anyone here in Vancouver; oh, it's true, it's true.
Pro wrestling is not fake; it's sports entertainment. We go out there and we perform, and a lot of what we do out there is real, but we're not going to insult anyone's intelligence - there is a predetermined winner. It's just the fans don't know who it is, and that's what makes it so intriguing.
