10 Unusual Demands Made By Wrestlers
6. When Kurt Angle Didn't Get It
Kurt Angle was incredible.
Dr. Tom Prichard had a hand in training several of the men who created your indelible Attitude Era memories. He knew Angle was a prodigy when he realised he could work a competent match within two weeks. There are talents in the WWE system who can't even do that after 10 years.
Angle was an in-ring prodigy; a mechanical marvel with a thoroughly convincing intensity that never once veered into parody. The more intense he was, the more terrifying he appeared. Other than Ronda Rousey - who didn't receive anywhere near as much credit, and there's almost certainly a very misogynistic reason why that is - nobody picked it up as quickly as he did.
That praise is limited to his in-ring; politically, Angle was lost, and only wasn't laughed out of the Fed for life given his extraordinary background.
During preliminary talks with Bruce Prichard in 1996, Angle demanded that he never lose a single match. As an Olympic gold medallist, he felt his standing could not allow for it.
"Who's this dipsh*t?" Prichard all but said - without looking in the mirror for once - and Angle only really began to get it when his fame diminished a couple of years later.
On the subject of Rousey...