Kurt Angle burst onto the WWE main-event scene quicker than almost anyone in company history. However, his rise to the top was almost stopped by Triple H, who prior to Angle's first ever WWE Championship win told Vince McMahon that he'd be making a mistake if he put the title him. Why? Because Angle was too small. He might not have been the biggest wrestler to step inside a WWE ring, but McMahon was wowed by his Olympic credentials and stuck to the plan. While Triple H was not able to stop Vince from putting the WWE Championship on Angle, he was able to prevent a storyline that called for his onscreen wife Stephanie McMahon leaving him for Angle at the end of their famous love-triangle storyline. Hunter convinced Vince that Stephanie would never leave an alpha male like him for someone as nerdy as Kurt Angle and plans were changed. Even though it made no sense to how the storyline had progressed prior, Hunter beat Angle easily and Stephanie returned to the side of her husband. It was a waste of one of the best-scripted love angles WWE has ever done. Angle still did well for himself in WWE despite that but he was never the true face of the company. Even when both he and Triple H were champions of their respective brands at the same time, it would be Hunter granted top billing on pay-per-views rather than Angle. In recent years Angle has expressed a desire to return to WWE but suggests that lingering resentment between he and Hunter is one of the reasons it has never happened.
Aaron Sass is a professional writer living in Corvallis, Oregon. He has previously done work with The Inquisitr, Examiner, and The Portland Tribune, covering the NBA, professional wrestling, and mixed-martial-arts.
