Your Olympic Hero... Kurt Angle (Kurt Angle)

Member Name: captain jack

Product:	Kurt Angle
Date:	12/08/01 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good moves, good finishers, funny gimmicks

Disadvantages: none really

This is my first opinion, so go easy on me ok. I've only just joined the Dooyoo community and have been looking for something to write my first opinion on, and what better than Kurt Angle. I like wrestling, so this is a good topic for me, and who better in wrestling than Kurt Angle, there is just so much to write about.

Even if you don't like wrestling, Kurt Angle commands a great deal of respect, simply because he has achieved so much. He has a list of honours, most notably his 1996 Olympic triumph in the 220-pound freestyle wrestling competition. This isn't his only achievement, since then he has won the WWF European Championship, the WWF Intercontinental Championship, the 1999 King of the Ring, and oh yes, the prestigious WWF Championship. And yet he has still achieved more, earlier this year he was inducted into the amateurs hall of fame, he is that good.

Contrary to the stereotypes that perceive wrestlers as being 'dumb', Kurt Angle has a B.S. in geography, that's right, he has a college degree which he gained at Clarion University. Once he graduated he didn't really use his degree to his advantage, instead he began to train for the USA's Olympic team, in fact, he was so good that he earned his way onto the USA's Olympic wrestling team for the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. In case you're wondering, Kurt beat Iran's Abbas Jadidi for the gold medal.

Once his Olympic dreams were fulfilled Kurt turned his attentions to the world of sports entertainment, in particular the WWF. The WWF have used Kurt tremendously, and have really used the Olympic gold medallist angle to produce some great gimmicks (trademarks such as Stone Colds, "and that's the bottom line, coz' Stone Cold said so"). However, I would have expected them to use an Olympic gold medallist as a babyface (good guy), but instead they have made Kurt a heel (bad guy), and they have done a really good job of it.

>The way that Kurt has been portrayed as a heel is a really good example of how television has progressed over the years. Ten years ago a wrestler wouldn't have been able to go down to the ring and then mock the fans without being in some form of trouble. Nowadays however, you can. This applies to Kurt because he likes to go into the ring and start complaining about recent or upcoming matches, and somehow always manages to fit in an insult about the city, or the fans who live in that city that he is performing in.

To make Kurt even better though, as well as being portrayed as a heel, he is also portrayed as a geek, and this can't provide anything but great comedy value. One of his gimmicks to make himself seem 'geeky' is the way he tells everyone to drink milk to make strong bones and teeth, "milk has calcium to make strong bones" is what he recently said to The Rock.

Kurt Angle has a range of great gimmicks. One of his favourite however, is his 'go home line' (last word so to speak), whenever Kurt finishes his speeches or verbal attacks on other wrestlers, he finishes with, "Oh it's true, it's damn true." Another of Kurt's gimmicks is the way he refers to himself as an 'Olympic hero', he usually manages to fit this in to his speeches saying "your Olympic hero...". The last of his gimmicks he doesn't use in speeches, but uses during his matches, and even with the crowd cheering a jeering you can still hear it. Whenever Kurt does something good, like his finishing manoeuvre, he gets up, jumps around with his arms out and shouts "whooooo", to which the crowd reply "whooooo", it's great stuff.

Kurt Angle has a really effective style of wrestling, using his amateur background to his full advantage. He has a great array of suplexes, which are very effective at applying pain to his opponent. Out of all of his suplexes, his favourite has to be
the belly to belly suplex. He likes to go to throw his opponent into the turnbuckle (corner), but instead of letting them go he stops them, pulls them back towards him, wraps his arms around them, and throws them over his head. As well as being an effective move, it also looks pretty impressive. Other than his suplexes though, Kurt mainly relies on power slams and punches and still manages to captivate the fans.

As well as being a great wrestler, what makes Kurt especially dangerous are his array of finishing manoeuvres, all in all he has three of them. The first I'll describe is the moonsault. This is a particularly effective move performed off the top ropes, and is also a move which is used to pin opponents. This move isn't really associated with 'heavy-weights' like Kurt, but is usually associated with 'light-heavyweights' such as Rob Van Dam, one wrestler who utilises the moonsault is Lita (a female wrestler). To perform the moonsault Kurt has his opponents lying at an angle near the turnbuckle, he then climbs to the top ropes, with his body facing the crowd and away from his opponent, and then jumps off, flipping his legs over his head and landing with his chest on his opponents chest. This is one of the best looking moves in wrestling, and as well as being good looking, it is also quite dangerous as Kurt recently put Hardcore Holly out for a few months by shattering his arm whilst performing the moonsault.

Kurt's 'big move' finisher is his Olympic Slam (recently being called the Angle Slam). This has to be one of the best moves in the WWF, not only because it looks good, but is easy to perform and puts his opponent down for the three count. To perform this Kurt holds one of his opponents arms around his shoulder, hooks his opponents leg with his free hand, lifts them onto his shoulder whilst spinning around 180 degrees, and then at the end of the spin, slams his opponents body onto the canvas. Great move.
Once he has performed this he proceeds to do his "whooooo" gimmick that I mentioned earlier.

Once he has performed his Olympic Slam, he then uses his main finisher, his ankle lock. This is a move that firmly established him as a heel when he broke Scotty Too Hotty's ankle with this move. To apply it he gets his opponent on the ground, facing the floor, hooks the ankle with one arm, and with his other he starts to try to rotate the ankle to the point when it breaks. This is a real finisher move, once he locks it in, unless his opponent is near the ropes or there is someone to interfere, the match is as good as over. He recently won the WCW Championship using it (only to lose it the following week!).

I should point out that Kurt is no longer the heel he was, the recent ECW/WCW against the WWF rivalry has made him a fans favourite. His rivalry with the EC/WCW leader, Stone Cold, has made fans cheer him so much, it's unbelievable that a guy who was once booed like Kurt was can become a fans favourite.

Not only is it his rivalry with Stone Cold that has made him a fans favourite, he has also shown a hell of a lot of guts recently. The 9th of Augusts episode of Smackdown! recently he showed his new found guts. I didn't see the whole show, but I did catch the end, Kurt was in a six-man tag team match with the Hardy Boyz against the Dudley Boyz and Stone Cold Steve Austin. I'm not sure how it happened because I only caught the very end of the match, but Kurt was being taken away on a stretcher and Stone Cold was saying how he broke Kurt's leg. Austin and the Dudley Boyz caught up with him and toppled the stretcher, the Hardy Boyz then started brawling with the Dudley Boyz whilst Austin was taunting and kicking a defenceless Angle. Then out of now where, using his amateur background Kurt got Stone Cold on the ground and locked in the ankle lock, I'll tell you now, the crowd were going nuts, it was great. The WWF
commentator Micheal Cole was going, "go on Kurt, break his damn ankle" (every WWF person hates Austin), it's just a shame the Dudley Boyz broke it up.

Kurt Angle is one of the best athletes in the world, let alone the WWF, I mean, you have to be to win a gold medal in the Olympics. Not only is he one of the best athletes, he is also 28, and at that age he still has the potential to go on and achieve much more than he already has. If you ask me he is a true role model, and that is true.

I hope you have enjoyed my very first opinion as much as I enjoyed writing it.

:o)

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