One MIND-BLOWING Secret From EVERY Month Of The WWE Attitude Era

11. June 2000 | Scrapped Kurt Angle Plans

Certain wrestlers simply cannot be buried, but their political shark peers will test this hypothesis with great enthusiasm. Look at Kurt Angle. 

Fully Loaded 2000 was loosely premised on the idea that the WWF main event scene was there for the taking; three established headliners wrestled upper midcarders on the cusp of breaking out. This was all well and good until the Undertaker slaughtered Kurt Angle and, treating him like he might as well have been Just Joe, lifted his shoulder off the mat to beat his ass some more, just for fun. Later in the year, Angle - who was so good that he broke out regardless - was put in his place by Triple H. Well, Triple H tried. The Angle/Triple H/Stephanie McMahon love triangle was the best thing going in the summer of 2000, almost incontrovertible proof that wrestling is indeed simply a way for males to watch a soap without the stigma of watching something “for girls”. 

About the only person who wasn’t crazy about this storyline was Triple H, who purportedly sabotaged it because nobody would buy that Stephanie McMahon would go for Angle, what with his classically handsome square jaw, rippling physique, and extravagant success in two separate fields. Angle was Bob Backlund in Triple H’s eyes. 

This doomed angle nearly didn’t happen at all; per the June 26 edition of the Observer, Angle was poised to play a “darker” heel - perhaps something closer to the absurdly intense ‘Wrestling Machine’ persona he developed in the early-to-mid 2000s. What’s better: that, or Triple H telling you that his hog is formidable?

Impossible to say.