Kurt Angle is legitimately banged up, even if the timing of his reinjured hamstring was a wee bit too convenient to take seriously, just so he could have an inbuilt excuse to miss the U.S. Olympic amateur wrestling trials later this week. But then again when isn't Kurt hurt? Despite not feeling healthy enough to compete in those trials, he still wrestled at Lockdown and had a top notch match with Jeff Hardy, but was convincingly defeated after the Charismatic Enigma hit a Swanton dive off the top of the cage. Angle even had to be helped to the back afterwards. According to Dave Meltzer, this was done to blowoff the feud and allow Kurt some much needed time off to recuperate his battered body:
As far as the swanton off the cage, it was meant to be an injury angle for Kurt Angle to get some rest. No time frame for a return other than he usually comes back way too fast.
Yeah, I'd expect Angle to be back wrestling in a month or two's time too before all the nagging injuries he's clearly got have fully healed up. That's his modus operandi, after all.
One person who wasn't best pleased about Angle's amateur wrestling con was canny self promoter Devon Nicholson, who recently came second in the Canadian Greco Roman Wrestling Olympic trials himself despite a full MCL tear. Never one to miss a golden opportunity for some publicity, Nicholson has issued a YouTube challenge to Angle for an amateur wrestling match while wearing his competition medals, which can be seen after the jump. This would be a natural feud for TNA to book, if only Nicholson had never contracted Hepatitis C, a disease he believes he got from wrestling Abdullah The Butcher in double juice matches. A national wrestling promotion is never going to sign Nicholson while he still has the disease due to the (arguably negligible) health risk involved, which is a real shame as he certainly has the presence and mic skills to have done well in the big leagues, similar to how health issues cut short Nigel McGuinness' promising career in TNA.