At WrestleMania 21, Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels engaged in one of the greatest WrestleMania matches ever.
Michaels and Angle are widely regarded as two of the best of all-time and WrestleMania 21 marked the first time they shared the ring together in a non-Royal Rumble capacity. Angle not only won the match, he forced Michaels to tap out. The finish wasn't the call of Vince McMahon, it was Michaels' decision.
"Vince left it up to us," Kurt recalled on The Kurt Angle Show. "I was surprised, I didn't know that's what he did. When I met with Shawn four days before WrestleMania, we went to 'hotel party room' where they had a ring set-up and you would structure the matches. Shawn came to me and said, 'We don't have a finish for WrestleMania, but I think you should go over by tap out and this is why. I think you're going to do a program with Batista and we need to make you look really strong. I was like, wow, Shawn Michaels just told me he was going to do a job for me. I was pleasantly surprised and didn't know if he was serious. It showed me that he respected me and he knew we would have an incredible match and it wouldn't matter whether he won or lost. I understand the program with Batista, which never happened, but I'm sure it was supposed to. Shawn just decided to let me win without the guarantee that we would wrestle again because there weren't any plans for us to wrestle after that."
The feud between Angle and Batista never happened as Batista continued his feud with Triple H following WrestleMania 21.
Angle and Michaels would rematch at Vengeance with Michaels picking up the victory.
Elsewhere during the podcast, Angle recalled Michaels telling him that he wasn't afraid of him ahead of their bout. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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