Kurt Angle

Kurt Steven Angle is an American retired professional wrestler Olympic gold medalist in American freestyle wrestling and former collegiate wrestler He is best known for his tenures in WWE and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling TNA While at Clarion University of Pennsylvania Angle won numerous accolades including being a twotime NCAA Division I Wrestling Champion in the heavyweight division After graduating from college Angle won the gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1995 World Wrestling Championships He then won the freestyle wrestling gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics with a broken neck He is one of four people to complete an amateur wrestling Grand Slam Junior Nationals NCAA World Championships and Olympics In 2006 he was named by USA Wrestling as the greatest shoot wrestler ever and one of the top 15 college wrestlers of all time He was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 for his amateur accomplishments Angle made his first appearance at a prowrestling event in 1996 and signed with WWE in 1999 Noted for his rapid comprehension of the business he had his debut match that August within the companys developmental system after mere days of training and participated in his first televised WWE storyline in March 1999 After months of dark matches Angle made his televised inring debut in November and received his first major push in the company in February 2000 when he held the European and Intercontinental Championships simultaneously Four months later he won the 2000 King of the Ring tournament and soon thereafter began pursuing the WWE Championship which he won in October This capped off a WWE rookie year which is considered by many to be the greatest in history Among other accomplishments in the WWE Angle has held the WWE Championship four times the WCW Championship once and the World Heavyweight Championship once He is the tenth Triple Crown Champion and the fifth Grand Slam Champion in WWE history On March 31 2017 Angle was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame After leaving WWE in 2006 Angle joined Total Nonstop Action Wrestling TNA where he became the inaugural and record sixtime TNA World Heavyweight Champion and the second Triple Crown winner in TNA history Angle is also a twotime King of the Mountain As part of TNA he made appearances for New Japan ProWrestling NJPW and the Inoki Genome Federation IGF holding the IWGP Heavyweight Championship once In 2013 Angle was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame he is the second wrestler after Sting to be inducted into both the WWE and TNA Halls of Fame