Kurt Angle Talks About Cody Rhodes’ Stardust Gimmick, His Experiences With AJ Styles

Ric Flair had a conversation with former WWE and TNA Champion Kurt Angle on the latest edition of his podcast. One topic of discussion was now-former WWE star Cody Rhodes, who has a match on Saturday against the Olympic gold medalist that Flair says will be the biggest match of Cody’s career. Angle indicated that he felt WWE should have pushed Cody to the main event level and says he’s a valuable talent.

“[Cody] is so talented, I picked him out a long time ago. There are times when you really need to push somebody hard. I didn’t realize how entertaining outside of wrestling he could be until he did Stardust,” Angle said. “I don’t know if Stardust was the right character for him, I was just impressed that he could do it.”

Flair indicated that he expects to see Rhodes back in WWE in a year or two, and echoed Angle’s sentiments that the Stardust character took a lot of talent to pull off.

Angle also talked about his former TNA colleague AJ Styles arriving in WWE, saying that Styles is a “one of a kind” talent and compared him to Shawn Michaels. Flair put over Styles’ interview skills, and says he’s improved since The Nature Boy saw him back in TNA. Angle said that Styles reminds him of Flair in the sense that he does most of the work in the ring and makes it easy for his opponents.

“He has it all,” Kurt said of AJ. “Psychology, technique, he knows when to fire up, he knows when to sell. The kid is just phenomenal at what he does. […] With AJ I just can’t believe it took him this long to get to WWE.”

Angle ended the interview on a complimentary note towards The Nature Boy: “Make no mistake about it, Ric Flair is a real badass.” Flair predicted that Kurt will be a future WWE Hall of Famer, despite any issues he had in the past with company management.