A lot has changed since Kurt Angle won his first WWE Championship.
For one thing, both the promotion and the title were then known by WWF, and the matches in question to win the title, to lose the title, and all the ones in between were booked by Mr. Vincent Kennedy McMahon, who no longer has a part in WWE creative after being ousted from the role by new owners Endeavor.
Taking fans down memory lane on his namesake show, The Kurt Angle Podcast, Angle reflected on what it was like to become a world champion so early after leaving Grecco-Roman wrestling in the past, a fact made all the more impressive when you consider he only wrestled 40 matches before becoming part of the WWE/WWF system.
“Oh, a little bit of me was like, ‘This is really cool, because the company must have a lot of faith in me to be their champion, and it's a big responsibility.' But I wasn't really like, ‘I'm the s**t now.' And it didn't come to me, because I was still learning the business,” Kurt Angle said via 411 Mania. “I was learning psychology. These guys were helping me out, my opponents. So I was still a student of the game — and I'm always a student of the game, don't get me wrong. But at this particular time, I was still learning a lot about psychology and being in the ring. It happened really fast, you know? But I had so much fun in my first year. It was just a lot of fun. I went through the ranks and climbed every month, just going higher and higher and higher till I got to the very top. It was so much fun doing it. It really was.”
Asked if he was given special treatment in WWE because of his championship, Angle said no, at least no more than he already received for being an “Olympic Hero” who rose through the ranks at an incredible clip.
“No, I never asked for it. I don't feel comfortable having my own locker room because then you separate yourself from the boys, and you don't want to do that,” Angle noted. “Some wrestlers do that, but they don't have really good relationships with the wrestlers. Like Undertaker never asked for [it]. He was always the leader of the locker room, but he stayed where the boys were. And if you don't do that, I'm sure you will get a little heat.”
Say what you will about Angle's early run in WWE, but it's clear despite his outside accolades, the “Olympic Hero” didn't come into the promotion feeling like he was owed something, with the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native instead wanting nothing more than to be one of the boys in the back like any other.
Kurt Angle discusses his relationship with Vince McMahon as Champ.
Turning his attention from the boys in the back to the man on top, Kurt Angle was asked if his relationship with Vince McMahon had changed with about ten pounds of gold around his waist and the eyes of the WWE Universe affixed on him as its top star.
While Angle holds strong that he tried to remain one of the boys in the locker room, he admits that things did change with Mr. McMahon, as the billion-dollar booker seemingly wanted to take him under his wing and teach him the ins and outs of the industry as a “Top Guy.”
“Yes, yes, a lot. And not only that, but he started asking me to go to the meetings, the production meetings. So the only two wrestlers who were in the production meetings were Triple H and myself,” Kurt Angle said. “And I went to those meetings probably for a good three or four years. And then after those three or four years, I thought, ‘Man, I wonder if I'm getting heat with the boys by being in the meetings.' So I felt like it wasn't my place to be there. So, I stopped going, and I probably should have continued to go. But Vince wanted me to learn the whole facet of the business. He wanted me to learn production. He wanted me to learn how to write and be creative and everything. So he wanted me to go in there and get more experience. So I did that, I'm very grateful that Vince had me do that. But after a while, I started thinking, ‘Am I getting heat with the boys for doing this?' So I stopped going.”
Was this behavior normal for Mr. McMahon and his champions? Did he provide similar insight to the likes of Edge, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? Or did he see something in Angle that he wanted to nurture, with authority figure roles becoming a part of some kind of late-career hustle in The Fed? Either way, there's a reason why Angle is a WWE Legend right now: He's been a favorite of the promotion for quite some time.