Ranking Who Was Really The Man In Wrestling Every Year 1990-2020

20. 2001 - Kurt Angle

Austin Jericho
WWE.com

The first year in which the promotion thought, to its detriment, that the brand was king, much of 2001 was sold to fans on the idea of the all-conquering WWF pummelling WCW.

A huge swathe of the Attitude Era's audience had no interest in buying it. Wrestling is a star-driven business, and the WWF had mangled the alignment and core of the Steve Austin character. He was the one man the public believed in, and he was, inexplicably, directionless.

In a year defined by the death of the boom, and badly declining TV ratings and gates, Kurt Angle's babyface challenge of Austin, at SummerSlam, drew an impressive buy rate more or less consistent with the otherwise unrecoverable highs of Austin's own babyface run. Angle was also tremendous value on TV - its undisputed highlight - and enjoyed a cracking year in the ring, in which he graduated from prodigy to general on the strength of his unreal King Of The Ring performance. He wasn't the man. There'd be nobody truly deserving of that status in WWE until 2005.

But he was close. He was damn close.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!