Ranking All 19 WWE King Of The Ring Winners

3. Kurt Angle (2000)

King Of The Ring Winners Bret Hart Brock Lesnar Kurt Angle
WWE

Another wrestler whose meteoric push received a shot in the arm from the King of Ring was Kurt Angle, who won the 2000 edition of the tournament.

Unlike Brock Lesnar, Angle’s trajectory was that of an upper-midcard heel, winning the Intercontinental and European Championships and antagonizing fans with his “3 I’s” speeches throughout late 1999 and early 2000. But when he won KOTR that June, it served as the start of Angle’s main event push.

Angle would land world title matches, winning the WWF Championship in October by beating The Rock. He would remain in high-profile feuds until the Invasion began playing out, and Kurt would become a central figure in that storyline throughout 2001.

Of course, Angle’s career has been well-documented with his recent retirement, but that King of the Ring crowning served as a turning point for him on his way to a Hall-of-Fame career.

Contributor
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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.