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Kurt Angle remained the only Olympic gold medallist to wrestle in WWE for a long time before Gable Steveson started to work as a professional wrestler in the promotion. He could never be as successful as Angle, but Angle's record did not remain intact anymore. But he can definitely be considered one of the best professional wrestlers ever.
Kurt Angle won the Olympic gold medal back in 1996, and he made his in ring debut in August 1998. He started appearing regularly on WWE television from 1999, and by the year 2000, he was an established main event star of the promotion. He won his first WWE World Championship at No Mercy 2000, and it was only the first of his six world titles in WWE.
How Kurt Angle trained for the Olympics
WWE always promoted him as the only Olympic gold medallist in WWE history, which he won back in 1996. Recently, he shared the insider details of his training for his Olympic preparation. Speaking with Sports Illustrated recently, the WWE Hall of Famer explained the following about how he revamped his training for Olympics;
Angle won the Olympic gold medal in 1996
“So I started doing that training, and it allowed me to pick up the pace, to go into another gear that nobody else was able to hold up against me. This new gear made me a much better wrestler and more effective. I wasn’t playing chess with those big, strong guys anymore.
Kurt Angle became a professional wrestler in 1998
"I was creating the action, and I was getting them tired, and it worked extremely well, because in 1995 I won the world championships, and in 1996 I won the Olympic gold medal. So, those two guys I have the utmost respect for. It’s crazy that I was able to turn it around and beat them, because I had never thought in a million years after 1994 that I’d ever beat them, and I did.”
Kurt Angle was active in WWE until 2006 before joining TNA Wrestling in the same year. He is still considered the best wrestler to ever step foot inside the TNA Wrestling ring. In 2017, he returned to WWE as a legend, and in the same year, he was also inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. In 2019, he announced his retirement from in ring action.
