An elaborate but well-deserved entrance cut one of WrestleMania 22's co-main events short.
Speaking on the latest episode of The Kurt Angle Show (via AdFreeShows), the Olympic Gold Medalist detailed the 2006 event and his triple threat match versus Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton. According to Angle, the men were allotted 21 minutes, but had to speed things up in the ring after over half of that time was taken up by their intros. Here's what he said:
"We had like 21 minutes for our match, including entrances, and the entrance was pretty long as it was. So my entrance was 2 minutes, Randy's was 2 minutes. Rey's had to be 8 minutes. So you add that together, that's 12 minutes. We only had 9 minutes to wrestle in one of the co-main events of WrestleMania. We had to cut a lot of stuff. It was a really difficult match to do, especially a triple threat match. It's really hard to cut stuff out because you have to have all three people in unison with each other knowing what's going on next."
Angle continued on to say that they didn't know ahead of time that this was going to happen and we're forced to adjust on the fly.
"The only thing I'm thinking is 'we're not going to have enough time,' and we didn't. So we had to cut some stuff out and we actually sped the match up. It was a higher-paced match because of that."
That said, Angle acknowledges that that night was meant for Mysterio, commenting that he deserved it.
When asked if they could have just gone over time, Angle shares that he never liked to do that. While some may have had that reputation, it wasn't one he wanted for himself. He said the following:
"Well, I just never made it an option. I always tried to end my matches on time because that's what I was told. The only match I ever went over on was my match with Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 21. So I think that to some degree those guys [Shawn Michaels and Triple H] are on a different level and they have a better understanding with Vince [McMahon] if they're going to go long. They might have the reputation of doing that, but I didn't want that reputation. I wanted to be a team player and make sure that I ended up on time."
Angle retired from in-ring competition after his match with Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35. He was also inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017. As for Orton and Mysterio, they're still active, competing on Raw and SmackDown, respectively.
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