Kurt Angle

College

Clarion University of Pennsylvania

Pro team(s)

U.S. Olympic Team

Hall of Fame

⭐ U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame

Kurt Angle grew up in the Pittsburgh area and attended Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he became a two-time NCAA Division I national wrestling champion (1993, 1995). He then made international history by winning the gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — famously competing and winning with a broken neck he had sustained six weeks before the Games. Angle then transitioned to professional wrestling, becoming one of the most decorated performers in WWE history and later a TNA/Impact Wrestling World Champion. His amateur credentials and incredible athletic accomplishment at the Olympics — "It's true, it's true" — made him one of the most legitimate and celebrated world-class athletes to enter sports entertainment.