Kurt Angle Explains Not Facing The Undertaker At WrestleMania
Kurt Angle has explained why a WrestleMania match with The Undertaker didn’t happen even though both men wanted to do it.
You don’t always get what you want in the land of WWE even when you’re all-time great superstars like The Undertaker and Kurt Angle. In early 2006, they were on top of their game and among the biggest names on the Smackdown brand. They wanted a WrestleMania match together, but it never happened.
Even though there wasn’t a classic Kurt Angle-The Undertaker match at WrestleMania 22 in 2006, they did have an all-time classic match at No Way Out in February 2006. Angle got a rare pinfall win over The Undertaker, who had Kurt trapped in a Triangle Choke submission, but Angle managed to pin Undertaker.
That No Way Out match was a 30-minute classic for Angle’s World Title that is remembered fondly by WWE fans as one of the best matches of that year and in that decade. Both men have spoken fondly about it over the years.
Instead of facing each other at WrestleMania 22, Kurt Angle lost the World Title to Rey Mysterio in a triple threat match that included Randy Orton. As for The Undertaker, he beat Mark Henry in a Casket Match that is not remembered fondly at all.
As Angle explained on his podcast called The Kurt Angle Show, the WrestleMania match with Undertaker didn’t happen for a few reasons.
“It didn’t happen. The reason why, we were trying to get it to happen in 2006. Undertaker and myself, Undertaker went to Vince [McMahon] and said Listen, ‘I want to wrestle Angle at WrestleMania.’ And at this particular time up until then, Undertaker did not have a WrestleMania type of match that he wanted. He always wrestled like Giant Gonzalez or somebody that he was trying to like make, as a wrestler.”
“And he didn’t get a lot of great matchups. He eventually did, he ended up working Triple H and Shawn Michaels, but up until then, he didn’t wrestle anybody that would have given him a five star match at WrestleMania.
“So he wanted to do it with me. And Vince was like ‘ain’t gonna happen because Kurt’s our champion, and Undertaker, I don’t want you to beat Kurt for the World Title, because I don’t want you to be the World Champion right now. And Undertaker, I don’t want you to lose your undefeated streak so you guys aren’t going to do it. What we’re going to do is we’re going to have it the month before at No Way Out.’”
“He granted us his wish, but just not at WrestleMania he decided to do it the month before just to entertain us. Just so we could say Vince this is what we could have done at WrestleMania and that is one of my best matches of all time. No Way Out against The Undertaker in 2006. We had a blow away match. I mean it was incredible. And I wish that would have been at WrestleMania that would have been one of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time.”
There were plenty of other Kurt Angle-Undertaker matches in their careers going back to 2000 as well, but the No Way Out 2006 is considered the best of the bunch.