Former WWE Champion Kurt Angle has detailed losing his olympic gold medals and how he turned to Vince McMahon in order to get them back.
When the talent made his WWF debut at the 1999 Survivor Series in a victory over Shawn Stasiak, he did so alongside the genuine medals he captured at the 1996 olympics which he wore as a sign of pride to the squared circle.
However, several months after making a name for himself Angle found that his beloved prizes went missing when his bags were stolen outside an arena during an ad-hoc autograph signing with fans. Thankfully the trophies were found with the intervention of Vince McMahon himself and Angle took to appearing in public with duplicates in order that he would never have to go through the ordeal again.
Speaking on his Kurt Angle Show podcast, the Olympic Gold Medalist storied the treasures going missing and how he turned to his powerful boss in order to regain them:
“When I started I used my gold medal [the real one from the 1996 Olympics] religiously. A few months after I debuted, I was in Baltimore for a show. I went outside and there were about 5,000 fans out there. So I put my bag down to sign autographs and my gold medal was in it, and the bag got stolen.
I was going to call the police, but I called Vince McMahon insead. Earlier that night, someone threw a baseball at Stephanie. Vince went to security and said, ‘I don’t care how much money it takes, you find the S.O.B that did that. You keep offering them money until they say yes.’ Security ended up doing a really high number until one of the fans said, ‘He [the culprit] did it.’ I’m thinking in my mind, Vince could do this for me. I called Vince and he didn’t answer. Thank god a fan called the fan that stole it and told them it had Kurt’s real gold medal. The fan claimed he found it next to a bus, I’m like, ‘Yeah whatever.'”
Under the guidance of Vinnie Mac himself, Angle then told of how his prestigious medals were left at home and replaced by duplicates which Vince had made:
“Long story short I stopped using my real medal from there. […] Vince decided to make 3 duplicates that looked exactly like the gold medal. I used those and 2 got stolen by the fans. Whenever I would have my match, I would take my medal off and place it on the mat or the steps and have my match. One of the fans hopped over, grabbed the medal and ran away. That happened twice, so there is only one duplicate left by the time I left the WWE.”
Kurt Angle’s final WWE outing came at WrestleMania 35 on April 7, 2019, when he lost his Retirement Match to Baron Corbin. The bout was originally meant to be Kurt Angle vs. Jason Jordan, but plans had to be changed when the latter suffered a career-ending neck injury.
Credit for the interview: The Kurt Angle Show