Kurt Angle says he and Shane McMahon stole the show at King Of The Ring in 2001, but they also ended the night feeling pretty beat up.
Kurt Angle spoke about his infamous match with Shane McMahon at the 2001 King Of The Ring pay-per-view on the latest episode of the Kurt Angle Show and explained how the match was laid out. Angle credited Al Snow for some of the elements in the match, then looked back on the now-famous spot where he (at first) unsuccessfully attempted to put McMahon through a plexiglass window in the stage.
“You can’t tame Shane McMahon…that’s the issue. When I had the street fight with him at King of The Ring, oh my gosh, but I have to give credit to Al Snow, he actually structured that match. I think Shane added a few different trinkets in the match but most of it was Al Snow and it was structured very well, you had the wrestling in the ring at the beginning then you had more of the fighting and street fighting then you had all of the hardcore stuff that was going to occur then you came back to the ring for the finish. It was great psychology, it told a great story, the match was incredible.
“The thing is, Shane’s so damn crazy and when we were going to do the spot through the glass, first of all, it was the wrong glass that we ordered, it was supposed to be sugar glass and it was plexiglass. The magic man never tested it, so here we are, I go to belly-to-belly Shane through the glass and he bounces off of it and hits his head on the concrete floor and now he’s loopy, he doesn’t even know where he is, I’m like ‘Shane, we have to move on’ and he said ‘no, no throw me through the glass again.’ So, I line up and I go to throw him through the glass as hard as I can and again, he bounces his head off the floor and I go ‘Shane, we’re done’ and he said ‘no, you’re going to put me through that f-cking window, right now!’ So, I did it one more time and thank God, he went through and the glass made an explosion and you just knew it was real.”
Kurt Angle went on to explain how he was taken back when he saw how much McMahon was bleeding, then he still had to set up to put McMahon through another piece of the glass on the stage. Angle said Vince McMahon almost tried to stop the match, but other officials held him back so they could continue and get the right finish.
“When I went in to get him, he was bleeding everywhere, his head, his back, his legs, his arms, I was like ‘oh shit’ and had to take him back through the glass one more time, so I set up to do it and I do it again and he bounces off again and hits his head on the floor and by this time, Vince is out of his seat and he’s about to come onto set and they’re holding him back and he’s pissed because he wants it to end and he doesn’t want his son to get injured and to get brain damage and I don’t blame him.
“So, I hurry up and I say, ‘screw this, I’m not going to belly-to-belly, I’m going to throw you through headfirst,’ so I threw him through it head first and I mean, he got cut up…his whole face, just blood everywhere and me too, when I threw him through, my arm got cut up and bled everywhere and we went to the hospital that night. The crazy thing is, we were so beat up that neither one of us could wrestle for a few months and here we are in the hospital, in a wheelchair and high-fiving each other. We’re idiots, we’re injured and you’re not supposed to get injured in a wrestling match and here we are in the hospital, high-fiving each other…but we did steal the show, so.”
Kurt Angle also spoke about his TNA feud with Samoa Joe and how he felt like it was a bit rushed; read Angle’s thoughts on their first two matches and why he thought it should have been spaced out more at this link.
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