Kurt Angle claims Vince McMahon let him and Shawn Michaels decide who would win between them at WrestleMania 21 in 2005.
Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels had a classic encounter at WrestleMania 21. Both men were arguably at the peak of their careers, with Shawn Michaels getting a second wind in his career in 2002. The Shawn Michaels of the 1990s was known for being difficult to do business with at times. However, Angle says that Shawn Michaels was more than willing to put him over in the Staples Center on that night.
Recalling the decision-making on the latest episode of his podcast, Angle says that he understood he would have to put Shawn Michaels over in return at some point, which he did at WWE Vengeance in 2005.
Also, Angle claims that Shawn Michaels was open to putting him over because he believed that Kurt would be going into a major program with John Cena over the WWE Championship. Shortly after WrestleMania that year.
“Listen, there’s no doubt in my mind that if Shawn was going to lose at WrestleMania to me, I’m gonna have to pay it back. There’s no doubt about it,” Kurt said with a laugh. “I don’t blame him. I was willing to do that, because he did me a huge favor. Actually, Vince didn’t have a winner for WrestleMania. He had us work it out between ourselves.
“Shawn said, ‘Listen, I’ll put you over, because I know you’re gonna end up doing a program with Cena afterward, and what you need is a good wind right now.’ So that is why I knew that I was going to work with Cena, even though I didn’t. I thought it was going to because Shawn told me, ‘You should get the win right here. because you’re going to be paired up against John Cena after this,'” Kurt recalled.
Kurt Angle would not work with John Cena immediately following WrestleMania 21. Still, both men would eventually be drafted to Monday Night Raw in the 2005 WWE Draft Lottery and work a program with each other in the fall of that year, running from WWE Unforgiven in September through WWE Survivor Series that November.
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