Kurt Angle: ‘I Had The Best Match Of My Career At WrestleMania 21 Against Shawn Michaels, And That Says The Kind Of Athlete And Superstar Shawn Really Is’

Kurt Angle discusses his WrestleMania match against Shawn Michaels.

In 2005, Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels got into a WrestleMania feud after the latter eliminated Angle from the Men’s Royal Rumble match.

During an Inside the Ropes show, Kurt Angle recalled the preparations he made for his matchup against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 21. Angle says they didn’t do rehearsals for this bout, except for one spot, because Michaels didn’t feel like it.

“Shawn and I get together a week before Wrestlemania. Every day we have time to put our match together, the whole Wrestlemania week. 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 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.’ I was like, ‘Oh, God. Here we go. This guy’s got a big ego.’ We end up bullshitting that day. We don’t even talk about the match. I’m like, ‘Oh shit, 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. 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. The only move that we went over in the ring was Shawn was going to get me in an arm bar, 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. That’s all we went over.

Everything else was talked about, but not rehearsed. I was like, ‘I don’t even know if I can tie up with this guy.’ 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. 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.”

They ended up having a great match, and Angle says it’s all because of Shawn Michaels.

“We had the best chemistry. It was like we worked together for five years. I can’t give myself credit because I’m not that kind of person, but Shawn has to be the reason. He’s never had a bad match with anybody. If anything, he’s had 4 and 5-star matches with everybody, but planning for it was unbelievable because we really didn’t plan that much. I had the best match of my career at Wrestlemania 21 against Shawn Michaels, and that says the kind of athlete and superstar Shawn really is.”

Elsewhere on the same show, Kurt Angle also discussed the Milk-O-Mania segment. Fans can read his comments here.

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