In 1999 when the WWF first aired vignettes hyping his debut, Kurt Angle was promoted as the “most celebrated real athelete in WWF history”. While that statement is pretty damn funny for a number of different reasons, there was no denying how REAL Kurt Angle truly was. Before stepping into the world of “entertainment”, Kurt was a legitimate Olympic Gold Medalist, which is about as big as it gets in the world of athletes. Kurt was offered a deal in 1996 by the WWF (and by ECW), but Kurt laughed it off until he came to his senses in 1998 after watching an episode of WWF Raw is War.

In retrospect, Kurt’s story in wrestling is that, alongside guys like Bill Goldberg, Vader, and Brock Lesnar, he was one of the fastest rising stars in the history of the business. After debuting at the 1999 Survivor Series (not many stars debut on PPV), he became the first man to capture every single singles title in the company (technically Diesel did it first, but that was 2 belts to 4). This culminated with Kurt SHOCKINGLY defeating The Rock at No Mercy 2000 to become the WWF Champion. Kurt would go on to win a plethora of titles as well as the 2000 King of the Ring.

Kurt was really a jack of all trades. He was a legit “shooter” and everybody knew it and he could be one of the scariest dudes ever. But he also had tons of charisma and could do comedy as well. But the thing Kurt was best at, that earned the respect of both his piers and the fans, was his workrate. Kurt quickly learned how to have not only good matches, not only great ones, but EPIC matches. The list of great matches Kurt had just in his first year were stunning, but he really didn’t hit his stride until 2001, when he had damn-near classic contests with Triple H, The Rock, Stone Cold, and Chris Benoit, many of these were just on regular episodes of Raw. Kurt remained a solid main eventer in the WWF/WWE and capped his seemingly short, but effective Hall of Fame career with classic Wrestlemania encounters with Brock Lesnar, Eddie Guerrero, and Shawn Michaels. In 2006, after a somewhat bizarre and controversial series of stir-ups between Kurt and the WWE management, Kurt left the company to travel to TNA. His first month there, he faced off with the incredibly hot Samoa Joe and gave TNA their biggest PPV buyrate in company history. Kurt has remained in TNA since then and gone on to win numerous titles and feud with nearly everybody on the roster.
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If we decided to put this list together 20 years ago, Hulk Hogan would be at the top of the list. He’d be days before his WrestleMania VIII main event match with Sid Justice, having main evented every WrestleMania up to this point. If we decided to put this list together just 10 years ago, he’d be high off his WrestleMania X8 match with The Rock, which was the best received match on the card. He’d still have been top 5 on most people’s list at that point and probably still in the top 3 for me.

So why is Hulk Hogan, one of the two people most responsible for the success of WrestleMania and this current era, so far down this list at number 16? Well, I think it mostly has to do with his failure to let go and his current reputation. At one point, the biggest star in the business, he’s been humanized and not in a good way.

I’m going to argue for him being higher up on this list, while listing reasons why he’s not as well.

Argument for higher ranking:

• Main evented the first eight WrestleManias and is the biggest reason outside of celebrity promotion for why the first one went off without a hitch.
• With Andre The Giant, he was featured in the most watched match on US television (read more about it in Big D’s write-up of Ted DiBiase).
• Was the babyface in huge money making feuds with Paul Orndorff, Andre The Giant, Roddy Piper, and Macho Man Randy Savage.
• Drew on top longer than Rock, Triple H, and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
• Business mover who turned WCW business around initially in 1994.
• Reinvented himself as part of the nWo and helped WCW become the biggest wrestling company in the US for two years.
• With Rock, “stole the show” at WrestleMania X8, becoming the most talked about match on the show despite it not being the main event.
• Put over Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar late in his WWE return run.
• Had a great run under the mask as Mr. America. Okay, that one wasn’t really an argument for.

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Here’s footage from last Sunday’s Against All Odds TNA PPV where Jesse Sorensen faced Shima Ion for a shot at the X-Division Title. During the match, Ion hit a moonsault on Jesse Sorensen and landed his knee directly upon the top of Sorensen’s head, thrusting his head and neck down into his torso like a accordion. Sorensen lay there prone for several minutes and the match had to be stopped. We later discovered that the kid had a serious neck injury and can’t move his legs. Tragic.

Yes, James Storm won the title after Bobby Roode couldn’t.