History YMMV / KurtAngle

** The general consensus is that the "Kurt's illegitimate son" angle would have had a much better chance of working with Chad Gable as Kurt's bastard offspring rather than Jason Jordan. Adam Blampied (formerly of WebVideo/WhatcultureWrestling and WebVideo/{{Cultaholic}}) even made that the basis of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_AvYcJoB_E his first fantasy booking video]] after returning to the business in 2020.

* DesignatedHero: Gets this treatment in the infamous ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough'' incident with rookie Wrestling/DanielPuder. Fans usually point out how douche was Puder for putting Angle on an illegal Kimura lock in their shoot-amateur wrestling match, but they rarely acknowledge that Angle was blatantly the first to break the amateur rules just minutes earlier when he submitted Chris Nawrocki with a similarly illegal neck crank - and they often even overlook the fact Angle actually broke Nawrocki's ribs in their bout despite being supposed to take care of the rookies as the veteran in charge.

** To be certain, a white man stalking a black woman, physically assaulting her husband, and threatening to rape her through "bestiality sex" crosses all kinds of moral lines. But ''Kurt Angle'' playing the role of the stalker, hamming it up with all kinds of psychotic {{Narm}} with Booker T and Sharmell, and acting extremely over-the-top as a sex fiend? You might just find yourself laughing too hard at Kurt's performance that you'd find the entire storyline to be unintentionally funny or SoBadItsGood. Even fans who don't like the storyline tend to think of it as a minor blemish in Kurt's run that doesn't otherwise hurt Angle's career. To put things into perspective, a wrestler being given a wife stalker angle tends to be a kiss-of-death to their career like with Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage. But Kurt? He bounced back fine from this kind of angle and him crossing the line with Booker and Sharmell in such an over-the-top and unintended hilarious way probably helped. It helps that Kurt angle is occasionally visibly surprised and uncomfortable with the lines Vince [=McMahon=] is putting in his mouth before blurting them out.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: He was such a corny, squeaky-clean babyface that it was almost embarrassing to watch. And then he started wrestling: not "pro" wrestling, but collegiate/Olympic style wrestling, with even more drawn-holdsholds than usual, and downplaying what few showy and impressive bits there were. This went on for ''weeks'', to the point that the fans didn't need any prompting to begin the "BORING" chants. Then Angle [[BewareTheNiceOnes snapped under the constant verbal abuse]], [[FaceHeelTurn yelled at the fans]], and switched to a brutal form of technical catch-as-catch-can pro wrestling. Angle was and still is one of the greatest pro wrestlers ever from an in-ring perspective. His later career in WWE included him main eventing pay-per-views and being a focus of storylines due to his excellent interviews.

** To be certain, a white man stalking a black woman, physically assaulting her husband, and threatening to rape her through "bestiality sex" crosses all kinds of moral lines. But ''Kurt Angle'' playing the role of the stalker, hamming it up with all kinds of psychotic {{Narm}} with Booker T and Sharmell, and acting extremely over-the-top as a sex fiend? You might just find yourself laughing too hard at Kurt's performance that you'd find the entire storyline to be unintentionally funny or SoBadItsGood. Even fans who don't like the storyline tend to think of it as a minor blemish in Kurt's run that doesn't otherwise hurt Angle's career. To put things into perspective, a wrestler being given a wife stalker angle tends to be a kiss-of-death to their career like with Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage. But Kurt? He bounced back fine from this kind of angle and him crossing the line with Booker and Sharmell in such an over-the-top and unintended hilarious way probably helped. It helps that Kurt angle is occasionally visibly surprised and uncomfortable with the lines Vince [=McMahon=] is putting in his mouth.

** To be certain, a white man stalking a black woman, physically assaulting her husband, and threatening to rape her through "bestiality sex" crosses all kinds of moral lines. But ''Kurt Angle'' playing the role of the stalker, hamming it up with all kinds of psychotic {{Narm}} with Booker T and Sharmell, and acting extremely over-the-top as a sex fiend? You might just find yourself laughing too hard at Kurt's performance that you'd find the entire storyline to be unintentionally funny or SoBadItsGood. Even fans who don't like the storyline tend to think of it as a minor blemish in Kurt's run that doesn't otherwise hurt Angle's career. To put things into perspective, a wrestler being given a wife stalker angle tends to be a kiss-of-death to their career like with Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage. But Kurt? He bounced back fine from this kind of angle and him crossing the line with Booker and Sharmell in such an over-the-top and unintended hilarious way probably helped.

** Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle was the most financially successful feud in TNA history, the most common criticism being that it could have made more money if it had not been rushed through, damaging Joe's drawing power in the process. It would become a running theme with similar subsequent TNA feuds also being rushed through, to diminishing returns (while things like Wrestling/AcesAndEights seeming to stick around forever).

* CrossesTheLineTwice: Angle {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing WWE's inability to get him over as a heel by declaring that he [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain hates black people and wants to make Jesus tap out]], then getting a huge pop for saying that he can say ''anything he wants'' and still get cheered because [[BadassBoast everyone knows that he is the greatest wrestler in the world]].

** More like "Shaved the Head"; Angle was always considered a great wrestler, but the WWE never gave him a great reign as champion, and he always seemed to be more of a goofball than a badass, until he lost a Hair match against Wrestling/{{Edge}} and shaved his head in 2002. The same year, he got his first great world title run, and people started to see him as not just a great wrestler, but one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: The RunningGag through his first WWE run of him having milk as a substitute for alcohol can become this after his repeated arrests for driving under the influence, to the point that he had to take a hiatus from TNA to go to rehab due to it.

* OldShame: An old commercial Kurt did for a local pizzeria shortly after winning the Olympic gold. It's highlighted by having a green pepper and a pepperoni slice wrestling on the pizza itself while Kurt watches in amusement. [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] went so far as to show the commercial on ''Raw'' to embarrass Kurt. It worked.
-->'''The Rock:''' What in the blue hell was that?!

** While Kurt would still go on to become a mega-star in his own right in other feuds, many were disappointed that Kurt's love triangle storyline with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley ultimately went nowhere and sputtered out after a while, with Stephanie ultimately staying with Hunter. During this time, Kurt was getting a lot of great heel heat and many felt if he had really stolen Stephanie from Triple H, he would've reached a new level of wrestling villain superstardom. However, that never occurred and the love triangle unceremoniously ended, ultimately going nowhere.

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Kurt Angle is almost undeniably the ''greatest'' signing [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] ever made. He was also the beginning of the end of the company; after Angle was signed, he became [[SpotlightStealingSquad the focal point of the show]] to the point that TNA was literally nicknamed ''Total Nonstop Angle'' at one point. He ended Wrestling/SamoaJoe's undefeated streak literally in his first match, and was constantly put over much of the younger, homegrown talent. This set a bad precedent, as TNA started hiring other older wrestlers from the Wrestling/MondayNightWars afterwards and constantly put them over the younger talent as well (see: the Main Event Mafia). This trend reached its absolute zenith, when Dixie Carter made the very poor choice to hire Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/EricBischoff and allowed them free reign over her company. Hogan and Bischoff pushed damn near everyone under tmemehe age of forty barring Wrestling/JeffHardy and Wrestling/KenAnderson down the card (including "Mr. TNA" himself, Wrestling/AJStyles), hired their friends, and put them over at the expense of all the other talent.

* ShockingSwerve:
** After being released from WWE in 2006 (allegedly) due to his refusal to go into drug rehab, he then jumped to TNA in a move that shocked practically everyone.
** Within months of his return to WWE, he was at the center of a mystery storyline involving a "career-ruining scandalous secret". Turned out to be Jason Jordan being his son, which came completely out of left field -- particularly because it ''wasn't nearly as scandalous as implied'' and no one expected ''that'' to be the way he'd finally get to work with either [[Wrestling/AmericanAlpha Jordan or Chad Gable]].

* FridgeBrilliance: While not everybody is a fan of the storyline where Jason Jordan was revealed to be Kurt Angle's biracial son, it does make a bit more sense when you consider that out-of-kayfabe, Kurt Angle has actually dated a few black women in real life (he dated Rhaka Khan in TNA, and there are even rumors that he was sleeping with Jacqueline on the road during the Attitude Era). Given Kurt's openess towards interracial dating with black women, it's actually not that unbelievable to think that he could potentially have an illegitimate half-black son running around out there.

* DesignatedHero: Gets this treatment in the infamous ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough'' incident with rookie Daniel Puder. Fans usually point out how douche was Puder for putting Angle on an illegal Kimura lock in their shoot-amateur wrestling match, but they rarely acknowledge that Angle was blatantly the first to break the amateur rules just minutes earlier when he submitted Chris Nawrocki with a similarly illegal neck crank - and they often even overlook the fact Angle actually broke Nawrocki's ribs in their bout despite being supposed to take care of the rookies as the veteran in charge.

--->'''Youtube Comment:''' Kurt was so ahead of the times, he knw what HBK's hair would look like one day.

** Perc Angle. [[labelnote:Explanation]]A pun on Angle's name and "perc", slang term for the opioid painkiller Percocet/Percodan, in reference to Angle's painkiller addiction. It became common as the title of compilation videos of the most outrageous moments of Angle's career (and clips of some matches in which he appears to wrestle while high) set to rap songs, perhaps the most well-known being [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gb48HAldJE the one]] set to Zack Fox's "The Bean Kicked In."[[/labelnote]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle was the most financially successful feud in TNA history, the most common criticism being that it could have made more money if it had not been rushed through, damaging Joe's drawing power in the process. It would become a running theme with similar subsequent TNA feuds also being rushed through, to diminishing returns (while things like Wrestling/AcesAndEights seeming to stick around forever).

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Kurt Angle is almost undeniably the ''greatest'' signing [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] ever made. He was also the beginning of the end of the company; after Angle was signed, he became [[SpotlightStealingSquad the focal point of the show]] to the point that TNA was literally nicknamed ''Total Nonstop Angle'' at one point. He ended Wrestling/SamoaJoe's undefeated streak literally in his first match, and was constantly put over much of the younger, homegrown talent. This set a bad precedent, as TNA started hiring other older wrestlers from the Wrestling/MondayNightWars afterwards and constantly put them over the younger talent as well (see: the Main Event Mafia). This trend reached its absolute zenith, when Dixie Carter made the very poor choice to hire Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/EricBischoff and allowed them free reign over her company. Hogan and Bischoff pushed damn near everyone under the age of forty barring Wrestling/JeffHardy and Wrestling/KenAnderson down the card (including "Mr. TNA" himself, Wrestling/AJStyles), hired their friends, and put them over at the expense of all the other talent.

** My black son.[[note]]The early summer 2017 mystery storyline involving a potentially "career-ruining" secret for Angle turned out to be a college fling that produced [[Wrestling/AmericanAlpha Jason Jordan]]. Given that race is the main thing separating Angle and Jordan's looks and almost ''everybody'' expected an affair storyline instead, references to the original ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' gag instantly exploded.[[/note]]
** Kurt Angle went [[IncrediblyLamePun Raw]] on Jason Jordan's momma.[[note]]A less-PG version of the above. Within 12 hours of the illegitimate son reveal, Jordan's Wikipedia page has been repeatedly vandalized with either Angle's name being added to Jordan's ring name or the obvious unprotected sex "Raw" pun, forcing the page to be protected.[[/note]]
** I MUST MOONSAULT [[note]]An AlternateCharacterInterpretation on /wooo/ is that Kurt has an unhealthy obsession with performing moonsaults[[/note]]

* FridgeBrilliance: While not everybody is a fan of the storyline where Jason Jordan was revealed to be Kurt Angle's biracial son, it does make a bit more sense when you consider that out-of-kayfabe, Kurt Angle has actually dated a few black women in real life (he dated Rhaka Khan in TNA, and there are even rumors that he was sleeping with Jacqueline on the road during the Attitude Era). Given Kurt's open-ness towards interracial dating with black women, it's actually not that unbelievable to think that he could potentially have an illegitimate half-black son running around out there.
* FunnyAneurysmMoment: The RunningGag through his first WWE run of him having milk as a substitute for alcohol can become this after his repeated arrests for driving under the influence, to the point that he had to take a hiatus from TNA due to it.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: His TNA theme "Gold Medal" is catchy as all hell. And there's the iconic horn stabs of his WWE theme...

* DesignatedHero: Gets this treatment in the infamous ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough'' incident with rookie Daniel Puder. Fans usually point out how douche was Puder for putting Angle on an illegal Kimura lock in their shoot-amateur wrestling match, but they rarely acknowledge that Angle was blatantly the first in breaking the rules just minutes earlier when he submitted Chris Nawrocki with a similarly illegal neck crank - and they often even overlook the fact Angle actually broke Nawrocki's ribs in their bout despite being supposed to take care of the rookies as the veteran in charge.

* LovetoHate: The famous "YOU SUCK" chant sung in-beat with Kurt's theme. Then there was that time he kept re-doing his entrance because of the "YOU SUCK" chant.

* FollowTheLeader: We've seen clones of him (a NCAA/college athlete and amateur wrestler turned professional wrestler) in [[Wrestling/TheWorldsGreatestTagTeam Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas]], Wrestling/JackSwagger, and [[Wrestling/AmericanAlpha Chad Gable and Jason Jordan]], which is kinda remarkable, considering you don't see wrestlers with the same gimmick as, say, Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin, aka the biggest guy during Kurt's generation of wrestlers.
* FranchiseOriginalSin: Kurt Angle is almost undeniably the ''greatest'' signing Wrestling/{{TNA}} has ever made. He was also the beginning of the end of the company; after Angle was signed, he became the focal point of the show to the point that TNA was literally nicknamed ''Total Nonstop Angle'' at one point. He ended Wrestling/SamoaJoe's undefeated streak literally in his first match, and was constantly put over much of the younger, homegrown talent. This set a bad precedent, as TNA started hiring other older wrestlers from the Wrestling/MondayNightWars afterwards and constantly put them over the younger talent as well (see: the Main Event Mafia). This trend reached its absolute zenith, when Dixie Carter made the very poor choice to hire Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/EricBischoff and allowed them free reign over her company. Hogan and Bischoff pushed damn near everyone under the age of forty barring Wrestling/JeffHardy and Wrestling/KenAnderson down the card (including "Mr. TNA" himself, Wrestling/AJStyles), hired their friends, and put them over at the expense of all the other talent.