Kurt Angle Credits The Rock With Making Him A Main Eventer in WWE

In an interview with Sports Illustrated (via Fightful), Kurt Angle spoke about his rise to the main event in WWE and credited the Rock with helping him get to the top. Angle defeated Rock at No Mercy 2000 to win his first WWE Championship.

He said: “Rock and I had such a blast. The cool thing about him is that he was really giving. I was an Olympic gold medalist; it wasn’t like I was a nobody coming into WWE. But when you go in there with an ego, you’re gonna get in trouble very quickly. So I never had that ego, and I always felt that these stars that I was gonna wrestle, like The Rock and Stone Cold. I put them at a higher level above me, but Dwayne always brought me up to that level and said, ‘Hey, you’re with us. You’re up here with us. You’re not down there with the rest. You’re up here with us.’ So he was always very generous with the way he wrestled. He was my first World Championship match, where I won the World Championship. He didn’t have to say yes, but he did. So I’m just very grateful. I think the rock has done so much for my career.“