It's questionable how well Angle would fare in MMA competition because of his age, injury history and lack of experience in other fighting skills besides amateur wrestling. Angle, though, dismisses such talk.

Said Angle: "A lot of fans have been talking smack and saying, 'What's Kurt thinking? He can't do this. There's no way. He'll get his butt kicked.' They don't know me. They forgot I won a gold medal in the toughest weight class (220 pounds) in the world at the time. ... People have never seen my style, which is explosive. I think a lot of heavyweights and light heavyweights won't expect that."