Kurt Angle left the WWE ring for good in 2019, and he did so with a long list of accomplishments in the professional wrestling industry. Before being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017, Angle was inducted into the TNA/IMPACT Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 2004.
By the end of his career, Angle had won 21 championships, including 13 world titles with the WWE, TNA, and Japan’s New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Wrestling at the 1996 Summer Olympics Men’s Freestyle 100 KG
He held two of WWE’s most illustrious titles—the Triple Crown and the Grand Slam—as their tenth champion. In addition to AJ Styles, Angle holds the distinction of becoming the first wrestler in history to capture the TNA and WWE triple titles.
However, unlike Styles, Angle is a two-time King of the Ring and King of the Mountain winner (2007 and 2009). No other wrestler can make that claim. But perhaps most remarkably, Angle is the only wrestler in history to have won all five major titles in the sport: the WWE Championship, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the WCW Championship, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
He is, without a doubt, one of the best and most well-rounded individuals to ever enter a ring, be it four or six sides. But before he was a Sexy Kurt who drove a milk truck and preached the three Is of Intensity, Integrity, and Intelligence, Angle was something bigger. Kurt Angle is a legendary Olympic athlete whose arduous path to freestyle wrestling gold in 1996 is the stuff of legend. It’s so true, so true, so true.
Professional Wrestling Frequently Features Former High School And College Grapplers.
While the number of those who have done so has decreased, those with Greco-Roman or freestyle wrestling experience have always had an opening into the professional wrestling industry. Kurt Angle was not the first or the last collegiate wrestler to go to WWE, but he is widely considered to be the best.
After taking up wrestling as a young lad, Angle went on to win multiple amateur tournaments, including the Pennsylvania State Wrestling Championship and the USA Junior Freestyle Championship in the same year (1987).
Prior to that, Angle made it to the state tournament as a sophomore and finished third overall. In 1988, Angle won the USA International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles Junior World Freestyle Championship, widely considered to be the highlight
