Adam Cole recently spoke on “The Kurt Angle Show” for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, Cole talked about how Kurt Angle influenced him in wrestling, working with Kenny Omega, and The Young Bucks, as well as his time at NXT. Here are the highlights:
His inspiration for getting into wrestling was Kurt Angle:
“I wrestled in sixth grade, all through middle school, and then almost until my senior year of high school, and I did that because of Kurt Angle even though I found out about Kurt after he got to WWE,” Cole said.
“Reading his book, hearing about all the training he would do, getting five hours of sleep, being involved in so many different clubs, and training twice a day, I’m like, this is what I want to do. I want to be this guy who works his tail off to get to his goals. At the end of the day, I knew that I wanted to be a pro wrestler. So I actually started wrestling in middle school in high school because of Kurt.”
“On top of that, you were the first pro wrestler, first celebrity, that I had ever met. My experience was so positive, that to this day, anytime I see someone, like a fan anywhere, I always in the back of my mind go, ‘I want this to be as positive an experience as it was for me meeting Kurt for the first time.’”
“I was so scared to say hello. My mother was there with me. You just had a huge smile on your face and my mom pushed my hand forward to shake your hand. I was so nervous. As a kid, you were my favorite from that point. I’m like, ‘Angle is the best. He is so nice and so cool.’ Then on top of that, watching the run that Kurt has had, I think it’s very safe to say he’s one of the greatest of all time.”
Working with Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks:
“I think Omega is the greatest. I think The Bucks are the greatest. But all three of us are very, very close friends.”
“We talk outside of wrestling. We talk about things besides wrestling. There’s like a genuine friendship there. So anytime you get to do anything where you’re with people that you’re very close with, and people that you care about, it makes that so much more special. We all have that mentality that we eat, sleep, and breathe wrestling. We love it.”
“We get so excited about every single match we have together or a different promo idea or whatever. We’re just so into it together. So I’d say we are like wrestling nerds. So yeah, working with those guys is great just because they’re three of my best friends.”
If he feels he was brought in NXT to stay in NXT:
“I don’t know. There was definitely a phase at one point towards the end, where I know there was this vision for what NXT was and what it was bringing to the table. When we first ended up on television, the vision, as far as I was concerned, was that NXT is legit a third brand at this point. It’s something separate from Smackdown. It’s something separate from RAW. We want to make NXT its own thing on television and do as well as we can with it.”
“So at that point, me and a lot of other people weren’t even really thinking about RAW and SmackDown. It was like, okay, we just started the show on Wednesdays. We got to make it the best show that WWE has every single week. Let’s go guys, let’s tear it up, like that type of team mentality.”
“So at that point, it was just a focus on making NXT as good as it possibly was. But I think at the end of the day, everyone still at some point thinks, okay, are they going to move me to Raw and SmackDown or they’re going to keep me here in NXT? That started entering my mind towards the end of my run in NXT, but in the heat of things, from 2018 to 2020, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was just so NXT all day.”
