“It Was a Tough Situation” – Kurt Angle Reveals He Lost 30 lbs for a Role in the Movie ‘Warrior’

Published 06/07/2021, 7:30 AM EDT

After his initial WWE run was over, Kurt Angle went to Impact and briefly worked with promotions like NJPW. However, not many people know that he also ventured into showbiz.

In 2011, Kurt Angle was a part of ‘Warrior’, a sports-drama film starring Tom Hardy and Joe Edgerton. Although the film did not do well at the box office, it received some rave reviews from the critics and even got an Oscar nomination.

Angle played the role of ‘Koba’, an undefeated Russian fighter. Brendan (Edgerton) fought him in one of the most grueling matches in the movie. Brendan defeated Koba via submission in the semi-finals of Sparta, the MMA tournament.

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The movie remains Angle’s most popular appearance on the silver screen. On the latest episode of his podcast, The Kurt Angle Show, Angle revealed how he got the chance to star in such an interesting role.

Angle went to a casting call after the movie’s director Gavin O’Connor asked him to come down to Pittsburgh. Post that, he reached the ‘fight club’ where they shot the movie.

The Hall of Famer said, “When I stepped in the Octagon and learned some of the techniques, Gavin O’Connor came to me and said, ‘Hey, we want you for this film, we want you to be Koba, the Russian fighter.’ But I needed to lose 30 lbs.”

He was 220 lbs at the time and was “fairly light,” for a guy like him.“But I did, I lost 30 lbs, I got down to 190. If you saw the film you could notice that there was a lot of body mass. I got a little but smaller, a lot thinner.”

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Kurt Angle revealed what it was like to shoot for ‘Warrior’

The filming took place in Pittsburgh, where Angle currently resides. So the transportation was not a problem. Angle trained with Golden Globe nominee, Joe Edgerton.

Angle recalled the filming to be fun but with a lot of hard work. “We were shooting for six months. I did a lot of action, lot of fighting in the ring with Joe Edgerton and one of the other fighters, the stunt doubles for them,” Angle said.

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“It was a tough situation. We worked very hard for that movie. It was a lot of fun though!” he concluded.

Apart from this, Angle starred in a few more movies including Sharknado 2: The Second One, River of Darkness, and Pain & Gain.

If you are wondering why Angle never fully ventured into Hollywood like his other peers, you must check this article out.

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If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Kurt Angle Show with an h/t to EssentiallySports for the transcription.

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Angana Roy is a WWE and AEW author for EssentiallySports, having published more than 800 professional wrestling articles. She is currently pursuing higher studies in English language and literature from the University of Calcutta and has over three years of experience in journalism. As a life-long fan of the sports entertainment brand of pro-wrestling, her work consists of live coverage of weekly shows, PPVs, speculating the future course of storylines and everything in between.

“It Was a Tough Situation” – Kurt Angle Reveals He Lost 30 lbs for a Role in the Movie ‘Warrior’

Kurt Angle revealed what it was like to shoot for ‘Warrior’

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