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Jim Ross On Kurt Angle Winning His First WWE Title From The Rock At No Mercy 2000, Why Angle Becoming Champion Was Right Call
In a recent edition of Grilling JR, Jim Ross discussed Kurt Angle winning the WWE title from The Rock at No Mercy 2000, why Angle winning was the right call, and much more. You can view his comments below.
Jim Ross on Kurt Angle winning the WWE title from The Rock at No Mercy 2000 and the idea behind bringing Angle into WWE: “He’s a world-class guy. You don’t win gold medals through luck, you win it on skill and talent and determination. Kurt had a hell of a year. Sometimes, because he was such a perfectionist, it might have been too much too soon because he still had some issues he had to deal with. He wrestled hurt, he wouldn’t tell people when he was hurt, and we knew he had a bad neck from the Olympics. He’s special. He’s Secretariat, man. He’s a thoroughbred that wins races. He came to us from Pittsburgh – all the attributes you could ever want from an amateur – but when he came in, I’m not sure Jerry McDevitt didn’t have something to do with recruiting Kurt the first time to get in the wrestling business and WWE. Jerry is I think the best attorney in America and he had that Pittsburgh connection because he lived there and practiced law there, but it didn’t work out and they didn’t close the deal. I was not involved in that deal.
“Then, after that, we made another run because I felt like we hadn’t played our best cards and we needed to get this guy. We needed this Olympic gold medalist from Pittsburgh, so we opened back up the conversations, and all of a sudden, boom, we get him signed. His TV broadcasting work is not what Kurt wanted. Kurt did not read a teleprompter as well as he wrestled. So, he saw that may not be the best fit for him and there was big money to potentially be made by coming to WWE and just being great. How do you guarantee somebody is gonna be great? Because he’s a goddamn Olympian. That’s what he’s used to doing. There’s no other way. How do you not see this guy as money? So, we brought him in, and between Tom Prichard and Dory Funk Jr., they trained him up, and he absorbed everything. He was a great student, without question. And he wanted to be good…….he loved to be coached, he loved to be challenged. He’s like [Brock] Lesnar – he wanted to win every drill. It was a fun time to start to see these guys develop and evolve. That year we’re talking about with Kurt, has it ever really been duplicated since?”
On why Angle winning the title was the right call: “We had built Kurt with all this momentum, with all these successes and the titles you had eluded to. He was on a roll. If you didn’t follow through with it and get him to the promised land, then you’ve gotta have a great reason why he’s not at the promised land. He’s gotta be injured or some storyline issues or something. He was ready, and if you don’t follow through with it and take him to the next step, you might miss an opportunity you can’t regenerate. He had the momentum, it was a good move, it shows the professionalism of Rock who didn’t have to lose. If Rock had no wanted to do the honors, he wouldn’t have been forced to do the honors. Rock saw it was the best thing for business, and he knew that his matches with Kurt were gonna be terrific. How could they not be? You have two legit athletes who both want to be as good as they can possibly be. They have a lot of the same DNA. I thought it was the right thing to do.”
If using any of the above quotes, please credit Grilling JR with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
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