"I don’t wanna work with these guys, they are idiots" - When Stone Cold was scared to wrestle against 2 former WWE Champions
Stone Cold is one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time. He was known for his brash, anti-authority persona that propelled him to superstardom and mainstream popularity. However, it is now known that the Texas Rattlesnake was scared of working with Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle.
Kurt Angle performed an incredible moonsault off the top of the steel cage in a match against Chris Benoit on RAW in 2001. The Rabid Wolverine moved out of harm's way as the Olympian crashed into the mat with Stone Cold on commentary.
On the Kurt Angle Show, the 6-time WWE World Champion spoke about how he and Benoit were looking to impress Steve Austin but ended up scaring him with their crazy spots.
"I actually knocked the wind out of myself. On one of those moonsaults, I believe it was a year later, I did it again with Chris Benoit and I blew my knee out and I had to have knee surgery. That was in the end of 2002 and I wrestled Benoit at the Royal Rumble in 2003 for the world championship so I remember that. This was a little bit earlier, this was in 2001. This was when Austin was there and we were trying to impress Stone Cold, we wanted to show that we wanted to work with him so we were doing crazy stuff and you know what we did, we scared him."
Kurt Angle then revealed that the crazy spots led to Stone Cold not wanting to work with Angle or Benoit.
"He was like, I don’t wanna work with these guys, they are idiots. So we had to tone down our styles and show that we could work safely and not be crazy and it was crazy that Stone Cold Steve Austin was not interested in working with us at this time," Kurt Angle said. [1:12 - 2:06]
Kurt Angle and Stone Cold wrestled each other many times in WWE
Despite Stone Cold's perceived hesitation, he wrestled against Kurt Angle numerous times. They feuded over the WWE Championship in 2001, squaring off at SummerSlam and Unforgiven. At the latter pay-per-view, Kurt Angle won the title.
On This Day in Wrestling History - Kurt Angle defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin to become WWF Champion 21 years ago today at WWF Unforgiven 9/23/01 @OTD_in_WWE @TheAnglePod @RealKurtAngle
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He lost the title to Stone Cold within weeks of winning it at RAW. Their last singles match came in January 2002 on RAW. Stone Cold won the WWE Undisputed World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Final.