WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle has looked back on his debut, and how he didn’t think that he would work as a heel or be booed by the fans.
Prior to his debut at Survivor Series 1999, Angle famously won a Gold Medal at the 1996 Olympics while also dealing with a broken neck. Given his accomplishment and the vignettes that were portraying Angle as an American hero, the former World Champion first thought that he would be cheered by the fans and hailed as a mega babyface. However, when it came time for Angle to debut, we was famously booed by the crowd, which made Angle irate that they would disrespect an Olympian.
While appearing on the Dos and D show, Angle discussed the gimmick being pitched to him, and how Vince McMahon knew from the early days of The Rock that it would not work as a babyface:
“Vince McMahon wanted to use The Rock as material for me, being who I was. He tried to push him as a baby face really hard, and the fans were chanting ‘Die Rocky Die.’ They didn’t like him because [Vince] pushed The Rock as a white meat/nerdy type of baby face. That’s what Vince did with me, but he knew it was going to fail.
In other words, they weren’t going to cheer for me. They were going to boo me cuz I’d make them sick to their stomachs. Because of what happened with The Rock when he tried to be a babyface and it made him a heel. Vince knew that would do the same for me, and he wanted me to be a heel.
“I Don’t Think The Fans Will Boo Me”: Kurt Angle On Being A Heel In WWE
Continuing, Angle recalled protesting the idea and that he thought the fans would cheer him, to which McMahon reassured him that it would work:
I was like, ‘Vince, I’m an Olympic Gold Medalist for the United States of America. I said, ‘I don’t think these fans are going to boo me’. He goes, ‘Trust me, after you’re done with what I tell you to say, they’re gonna boo you,’ and they did. They wanted the character to be [like] ‘uh, you know what, I like this guy, but there’s something off…’ and he just explained that to me. I would always talk about the three I’s, but I wouldn’t always portray that.
So it was like I was a hypocrite, and that’s what the character was. It wasn’t a very easy character. It was a complex character, but I understood what Vince meant.”
With multiple face and heel turns throughout his career, Angle proved that he was able to play both roles very well when some performers were only able to excel at one side.
H/t to Fightful for the use of transcriptions.
Featured image: WWE
