20 years ago today, in the main event of WWE No Mercy, Kurt Angle defeated The Rock to win the WWE Championship for the first time. When ESPN’s Ariel Helwani sent out a tweet about attending the show, The Rock responded to give his thoughts on the match:
“Love this match! It was a brilliant build up and promotion.”
He went on to put the Olympic gold medallist over one more time, saying:
“Honored to “do the honors” for Kurt. He’s one of the good guys AND one of the greatest athletes of all time. Rare combo.”
Love this match! It was a brilliant build up and promotion. Honored to “do the honors” for Kurt. He’s one of the good guys AND one of the greatest athletes of all time. Rare combo. Didn’t know your wrestling roots go this far back, Ariel. We gotta talk 😉👊🏾
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) October 22, 2020
The match itself saw Angle win after help from Stephanie McMahon, who had accompanied him to the ring, Triple H, and finally Rikishi, who had gone out to the ring to help The Rock, but accidentally knocked him out when trying to attack Angle, allowing Angle to pin the ‘Great One’.
This was the first of four WWE Championship reigns for Angle. It came less than a year after he debuted with the company at Survivor Series in 1999, only 11 months earlier. The reign was to be short-lived, as he lost it back to The Rock only four months later at No Way Out in 2001, which you can view below.
The Rock is due to make a cameo for Impact Wrestling at this weekend’s Bound for Glory event. This will be in the form of a video message as requested by Ken Shamrock for his induction into the promotion’s Hall of Fame.