15 Things We Just Learned From Kurt Angle About WWE & His Career

7. What's His Career Highlight?

Looking back on a career like Angle's and picking out the best moments will inevitably be tough - as he says himself - but his debut period with WWE holds a special place in his heart.

"When I started out with WWE, I would say that was the funnest time of my career because I really didn't know what was in store for me. I was only wrestling for a year when I started on TV. That doesn't happen. I really soaked it up like a sponge and every week I got better and better. Within 10 months of when I started on TV, I was world champion. I beat The Rock at No Mercy and had a nice little title run for about 6 months. Everything was new to me back then, and I loved the persona - you know, the funny, goofy, basically selfish and ignorant... it was a lot of fun to mix it up and the writers did an incredible job with my character. Brian Gewirtz really did an amazing job with the content that I had every single week. I have to give Brian a lot of credit. Brian and Vince McMahon for working very hard on my character, and it was a lot of fun to do."

It's interesting to hear Angle talk about his own career and to self-assess to candidly, particularly when he's so comfortable ladling out the praise for his later achievements, but he openly concedes he struggled to begin with:

"I didn't consider myself that great of a wrestler. I got it done, I was good enough to get it done and every week I did get better, but after my first world title reign is when the lightbulb went off in my head and I started having a lot better matches."