Kurt Angle

Kurt Steven Angle is an American retired professional wrestler and amateur wrestler. He first earned recognition for winning a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Summer Olympics despite competing with a broken neck, and achieved wider fame for his tenure in WWE and TNA. He is considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers and amateur wrestlers of all time. Angle won numerous accolades while at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, including being a two-time NCAA Division I Wrestling Champion in the Heavyweight division. After graduating, he won gold medals in freestyle wrestling at the 1995 World Wrestling Championships and 1996 Summer Olympics. He is one of four people to win the Junior Nationals, NCAA, World Championships, and the Olympics. In 2006, he was named by USA Wrestling as the greatest shoot wrestler of all time and as one of USA Wrestling's top 15 college wrestlers of all time. In 2016, he was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame. Angle made his first appearance at a professional wrestling event in 1996, and signed with the WWF (now WWE) in 1998. Although he was never a fan of professional wrestling and previously had a negative opinion of it due to its scripted nature, he was noted for his natural aptitude for it; after training for only a few days, he had his debut match within the WWF's developmental system in August 1998 and had his first official WWF match in March 1999. After months of dark matches, Angle made his televised in-ring debut in November 1999. Within two months, he was holding the European and Intercontinental Championships simultaneously. Four months later, he won the 2000 King of the Ring tournament and began pursuing the WWF Championship, which he won in October and would go on to win a total of four times. He also became a one-time WCW Champion and one-time World Heavyweight Champion. He is the tenth professional wrestler to achieve the WWE Triple Crown and the fifth to achieve the WWE Grand Slam. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame's class of 2017. After leaving WWE in 2006, Angle joined TNA, where he became a record six-time TNA World Heavyweight Champion and the second TNA Triple Crown winner, holding all three TNA championships simultaneously. He is also a two-time King of the Mountain. During his tenure with TNA, he also competed for NJPW and the IGF, winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship once. In 2013, he 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. Angle has won over 21 professional wrestling championships and is an overall 13-time world champion. He is the only wrestler to have won the WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship, WCW Championship, TNA World Heavyweight Championship, IWGP Heavyweight Championship, and an NCAA Wrestling Championship. He is also the first person to hold both the WWE and TNA Triple Crowns. He has headlined numerous pay-per-view events, including WrestleMania XIX and Bound for Glory on three occasions, the flagship events of WWE and TNA respectively. In 2004, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter inducted Angle into its Hall of Fame and later named him "Wrestler of the Decade" for the 2000s. John Cena called Angle "without question the most gifted all-around performer we have ever had step into a ring" and said "there will never be another like him".