There’s a famous story where hockey icon Wayne Gretzky kept all of his awards and trophies out in the garage.
Kurt Angle can relate.
While patiently waiting for the 58th annual Cauliflower Alley Club banquet to start on Wednesday, August 21, where Angle was adding to his accolades with the Lou Thesz/Art Abrams Lifetime Achievement Award, Angle told SlamWrestling.net about the status of collection of honors.
“Up until this year, my trophies and awards were all in storage,” revealed Angle. “We finally bought my dream home, and we fixed up the office, and we got them all up on the shelves in the office and up on the walls. It looks like a Kurt Angle montage of just all the awards that I’ve won throughout my life, which was pretty many.”
Being recognized means the world to the 55-year-old Angle — it’s true, it’s damn true.
“They mean everything. It defines my legacy. You win an award like Lou Thesz Award, you know you did something really incredible,” he said. “I’m really honored to be able to accept the Hall of Fame from WWE or the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for freestyle wrestling, or the Dan Gable Hall of Fame and every other Hall of Fame I’m in, I can’t even count how many I am, but every one is important.”
Kurt Angle reads some words Lou Thesz once wrote about him at the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame induction in July 2015. Photo by Steve Johnson
This is actually Angle’s second award from the Cauliflower Alley Club. In 2000, he was given the Future Legend Award — a pretty good prediction.
“I got the Future legends Award, which is a different award now,” said Angle (the CAC hasn’t awarded it in years). “It was kind of cool to go there and see how much history wrestling had. Knowing the great Lou Thesz and getting to meet him was really cool, but I think this is more like a celebration once a year to get together and celebrate with old friends.”
With his two gold medals in freestyle wrestling, one from the World Championships in 1995 and the other from the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Angle did find himself watching the Olympic wrestling competitions in Paris.
“I thought we had the best US team in history,” he assessed.
USA Wrestling brought home two golds, two silvers, and three bronze medals, all in freestyle, with none in Greco-Roman.
“Did they do well? Yeah. They didn’t do as well as my team in ’96 but they were expected to, and they just had bad tournaments,” concluded Angle. “The former World and Olympic champion took fourth, so there’s a lot of competition in the world, and you’re not always going to win every tournament.”
TOP PHOTO: Kurt Angle is up hula dancing at the start of the Cauliflower Alley Club banquet at the Plaza Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday, August 21, 2024. Photo by Scott Romer
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