Kurt Angle Says Shawn Michaels Didn’t Want To Go Over Their WrestleMania 21 Match Beforehand

Kurt Angle recently looked back at his WrestleMania 21 match with Shawn Michaels, recalling how the planning (or lack thereof) came about. The two faced off in a singles match at the PPV, which famously went well over its allotted time.

Angle spoke about the match for Inside the Ropes and recalled how Michaels didn’t want to plan out the match overly much. He noted that they eventually talked out ideas but didn’t go over it in the ring, crediting Michaels for the match going off as good as it was. You can see the highlights below:

On Trying to Get the Match Put Together:

“So Shawn and I, we get together a week before WrestleMania. Every day, we have time to put our match together the whole WrestleMania week. So Shawn and I sat down, I’m like, ‘You want to get started on the match?’ He says, ‘Well, we’re not going to move around. We’re going to just sit here.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ I was used to like going over the spots and making sure I had it down. He’s like, ‘Just don’t worry about that stuff. It’ll come in time.’ So, I was like, ‘Oh, God. Here we go. This guy’s got a big ego.’

“So we end up bullshitting that day. We don’t even talk about the match. And I’m like, ‘Oh s**t, we just sat here for two hours and talked about personal things.’ I was like, ‘Shawn, when are we going to talk about the match?’ He says, ‘Come back tomorrow.’ So, I come back the next day. We have like five days to get ready for this match. And Shawn says, ‘Okay, we’re not going to go over it. We’re not going to rehearse it, but let’s talk about some spots.’ So, we talked about a few spots and what we wanted to do.”

On Not Going Over Any Of It In the Ring:

“The only move that we went over in the ring was, Shawn was going to get me in an armbar and I was going to lift him up over my head, and he was going to drop behind me and sunset flip me and get a false finish. We had to go over that to see if I was strong enough to pick him up. And that’s all we went over. Everything else was talked about but not rehearsed.

“And I was like, ‘I don’t even know if I can tie up with this guy.’ Like a lot of times, you don’t tie up with a person and you never get a feel for them, you don’t know if you have good chemistry with them. You might have bad chemistry, you never know. Shawn didn’t want to do this stuff. He didn’t even want to tie up.”

On the Match Itself:

“So the first time I touched Shawn literally was at WrestleMania. It was my first tie up with him, first anything that we ever did besides that one little spot that we just went over. And we had the best chemistry. It was like we worked together for five years. And I can’t give myself credit because I’m not that kind of person, but Shawn has to be the reason. And you know, he’s never had a bad match with anybody. If anything, he’s had four and five star matches with everybody.

“But planning for it was unbelievable because we really didn’t plan that much. And I had the best match of my career at WrestleMania 21 against Shawn Michaels. And that says the the kind of athlete and superstar Shawn really is.”

On Going Into the Match Intending To Steal the Show:

“Yes, we were. Shawn wanted to make sure of it. And you know what he did? He’s the only person that could get away with it. We went 10 minutes over at WrestleMania. We went for 35 minutes. We were slotted 25 minutes, but Shawn being the asshole he is, he went 10 minutes over.

“I’m scared to death that I’m going to have heat when I come back. But there was no heat. Vince McMahon always let Shawn do what he wanted to do. And rightfully so. If anybody deserves it, it’s Shawn Michaels. And because of that, we had the best match on the card.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Inside the Ropes with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.