Why Kurt Angle Was Afraid Before Major WWE Match
Kurt Angle has admitted that one of his biggest WWE matches made him nervous because of the kind of wrestler he was going up against.
Many pro wrestling fans would rank Kurt Angle among the greatest all-around wrestlers ever. When it comes to in-ring performance, Angle is highly regarded not just for his career in the 2000s until his 2019 retirement, but he’s among the best of all time.
When Rey Mysterio made his WWE pay-per-view debut at SummerSlam 2002, former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon decided that Angle would be the perfect opponent for him. By this point, Angle had already been a multi-time World Champion and was considered one of the best wrestlers in the world even though he had less than three years of experience wrestling on television.
The Kurt Angle-Rey Mysterio match at SummerSlam 2002 opened the show and is highly regarded as one of the best opening matches ever. What’s incredible about the match is that it was kept under 10 minutes, yet it was full of action the whole way.
In a WWE video recalling their past matches together, Angle admitted to Mysterio that he was worried about the match since he had never faced a luchador before.
“Rey, I was scared to death when you and I first wrestled at SummerSlam 2001, I believe, 2002. I was scared to death because I never wrestled a Lucha wrestler before.”
Angle would go on to win the match with the Ankle Lock after countering a Mysterio attempt at a hurricanrana.
Kurt Angle Was Upset About An Extravagant Rey Mysterio Entrance
Another famous Angle-Mysterio match was at WrestleMania 22 in 2006 when Angle defended the World Heavyweight Title against Royal Rumble winner Mysterio and Randy Orton. That Angle-Mysterio-Orton match is great as well, but a criticism from some fans is that it was kept under ten minutes.
During the same WWE video, Angle spoke about how he was frustrated because Rey’s long entrance before the match cut into the time that the three WWE legends were given for the match.
“What I was upset about was your damn entrance (laughs). Our match got cut, and your entrance had to be eight minutes long.
And I was like, ‘My gosh, we’re not even gonna have a wrestling match.’ But it actually turned out to be a great match. We had to pick it up. (The entrance) was freaking cool, but I was so mad. You went all the way up, I’m like, ‘Is he gonna get out in the ring?'”
That match ended with Rey Mysterio becoming the World Champion for the first time by beating Randy Orton while Kurt Angle was sent out of the ring and not involved in the finish.