10 Wrestlers Who Sacrificed The Most To Become WWE Champion

5. Kurt Angle

It's pretty amazing that Kurt Angle is still wrestling into his mid-40s considering he won an Olympic gold medal in wrestling in 1996 with a "broken freakin' neck", as he so succinctly put it. Angle suffered a severe neck injury at the 1996 Olympic trials, fractured two of his cervical vertebrae, herniated two discs and pulled four muscles. After some intense rehab, he won Olympic gold six months later. His televised WWE career started in late 1999 and, amazingly, he was able to work through things until a severe neck injury sidelined him in 2003. The fear was that he might need a major neck surgery that would cause him to miss a year of action. Instead, he got a less invasive surgery, returned to the ring within a few months and won the WWE Title shortly after. Angle's neck injuries bother him to this day and it's a miracle that he can still wrestle. Those injuries are also part of the reason why WWE released him in 2006 and why they may be too scared to bring him back, just in case some serious injury happens to him on their watch. While Angle didn't grow up a pro wrestling fan, he grew to love the business and his ability to work through so many injuries has led to some people calling him "The Machine" because he always keeps going no matter what his physical ailments are.