Former WWE star Kurt Angle has looked back to when he “choked out” a fellow wrestling “brother” during a backstage scrap.
The Hall of Famer rose up the ranks quickly at the wrestling giant after impressing Vince McMahon. Angle had won Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling back in 1996 and was a national hero, but it wasn’t long before the infamous company CEO converted him into an arrogant, smug heel that everyone in the WWE despised.
Working in a time that featured the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, The Undertaker and many more, Angle meshed into the main event scene faster than anyone before him and became one of WWE’s top stars.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, long before Netflix came calling, and Kurt Angle had found his perfect rivals between the ropes. The American Hero and the late Eddie Guerrero produced some phenomenal matches together. Ahead of WrestleMania 20, in 2004, Angle had earned a shot at Guerrero’s newly won WWE Championship. The pair had previously been allies, but due to Guerrero previously eliminating Angle from a battle royal, this led to a captivating rivalry.
During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Angle revealed the pair came to blows outside the ring. He explained: “Eddie and I had a little scuffle one night. What happened was I was in a faction called the Honours Society. It was with Luther Reigns and Mark Jindrak. We were suppose to get heat on the Guerreros. It was the end of the show and we got backstage to the ‘gorilla’, where you enter the arena, and Eddie started yelling at me.
“He said, ‘You were stiffing me – You were hitting me hard for real. I’m like, ‘Eddie I didn’t touch you.’ He said, ‘yes you did!’ He pushed me. I said, ‘Eddie don’t do that again’. He pushed me again and I shoved him. He tried to double leg me and I got him in a face lock and I choked him out!
“The thing was when we went to talk I went over to him and said, ‘I want to apologise’. He goes, ‘I’m not ready to apologise’. I said,’ Oh really’ – and we start going at it again! Eddie and I were like brothers. We loved each other and we hated each other hard. But then Eddie calmed down and said ‘listen let bygones be bygones. He’s like, ‘I love you Kurt, you know I do’.”
Guerrero went on to be one of the biggest names in the industry before his untimely death in 2005 at the age of just 38.