In 1999, Kurt Angle was an American hero. Three years earlier, he won a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in heavyweight freestyle wrestling despite a severe neck injury. He could have come into professional wrestling as the new Hulk Hogan, a new patriotic superstar for a new era, but instead he was introduced as a cocky, overbearing, sometimes puritanical stick-in-the-mud who claimed to know better than anyone else. It was a risky move, looking back, but one that paid off. It wouldnt have worked if it wasnt for how entertaining Angle was on the mic, but his empassioned lectures on his three I's, Integrity, Intensity, and Intelligence were just the right kind of patronising, and hed pepper these treatises with a simple Its true, its true or occasionally when he was really fired up, things would become DAMN true! Angles character was a self-aware bad guy. He knew he was saying things people didnt want to hear, but it was true, so he was going to tell them anyway. Angle left WWE in 2006 to join TNA and set about reinventing himself from the goofier aspects of his WWE character. He became even more intense, and dropped Its true in favour of Its real, its DAMN real! which never quite had the same ring to it. While many fans hope and pray that Angle returns to WWE before he retires, the current rumour mill suggests hes re-signed with TNA, so a return doesnt seem likely for at least another few years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXr-nLock7k
