Kurt Angle has named five dream opponents from the past that the Olympic gold medallist wishes he could have faced on ‘The Grandest Stage Of Them All’ – WrestleMania.
Angle was answering questions from fans on an edition of The Kurt Angle Show podcast. Co-host Conrad Thompson relayed one question that asked Angle who his five dream opponents for a match at WrestleMania would be.
The WWE Hall Of Famer gave an eclectic list:
“This is a little weird. In the past, I would say, Bret Hart, Owen Hart. I would’ve loved to wrestle André The Giant. I know there wouldn’t have been much offence from my aspect, from my part. And I know he would’ve been throwing me around like a ragdoll but it would have been a lot of fun to wrestle André. Anybody that didn’t wanna wrestle André, why not? He’s seven-foot-tall, five hundred pounds. He’s a beast.”
“I would say The Iron Sheik for the sheer entertainment of it. The guys freakin’ crazy but I love him. You know what? This is a hard one but you’re gonna understand why, I would say Bob Backlund. He was a former amateur wrestler, he was a national champion. I think we would’ve had a really solid match.”
Thompson followed up on Angle’s answer of Bret Hart, to which Kurt replied:
“That’s the one I think about every day. I wish it would’ve occurred.”
Kurt Angle recently spoke to Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast. Angle revealed that he was trying to get a WrestleMania match booked with Bret Hart in 2004. Although The Hitman refused in the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WRNHiVJN9Q
Angle explained:
“I was trying to get that done. I understood why Bret didn’t want to do it. Me being, at 51 now, and looking back. If a young Bret Hart came to me right now and said, ‘hey let’s do our dream match.’ I’d be like, ‘it’s not going to be the dream match that I’d like it to be. I probably don’t want to get in the ring.’ So I understood why Bret didn’t want to do it because he had the stroke. He had a lot of bad luck.”
“I even told him ‘listen you don’t have to bump at all. I’ll do all the bumping.’ He’s like, ‘Nah, it won’t be the Bret Hart match that I want it to be. I can’t do that.’”
Kurt Angle has an illustrious WrestleMania career in WWE as things stand. The Olympian has faced fellow WWE Hall Of Famers Kane, Eddie Guerrero, and Shawn Michaels on ‘The Show of Shows.’
Credit: The Kurt Angle Show/Insight with Chris Van Vliet