On the latest edition of the Kurt Angle Show the Olympic Hero spoke about his famous SmackDown matchup against a debuting John Cena, which saw Cena answer an open challenge and kick off the “Ruthless Aggression” era for WWE. During his chat Angle revealed that he tried to “blow up” Cena in their bout, but Cena was in too good of shape. Highlights from the episode can be found below.
Says Cena introduced himself beforehand and was very respectful:
“They told me the day of the show I was gonna wrestle John Cena. He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, Mr. Angle, I’m John Cena. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I’m gonna be working you tonight. It’s gonna be an honor to get in the ring with you.’ He was very respectful.”
How he laid out the matchup and attempted to blow Cena up:
“You know what I tried to do with John? I really wanted him to take the test – the Angle test. I tried to blow him up and get him tired. I put the match together, and it was only 11 minutes. I made sure it was nonstop action and I wanted John to blow up. I wanted to take this monster-looking character, this Greek god, and show everybody how tired I could make him. And he didn’t get tired. The son of a bitch passed the test with flying colors. It was crazy.”
On Cena’s moveset being a little less fluid:
“His moveset in the ring was awesome. He had a great moveset. He worked really hard – good-looking kid, great build. His only downfall was, you could tell the way he moved around that he’s not quite as fluid as other wrestlers. He’s more choppy and a little bit more uncoordinated, but he makes up for that with hard work. Being able to do what he does – nobody knew at this time how good a promo he cut. So, this was kind of a pleasant surprise when he eventually started doing it.”
(H/T and transcribed by 411 Mania)