Original subtitles

You're in battle, you're drilling so high, and again, the crowd is pumping

through your system.

You've always just had the mentality of, you start slipping, you gotta finish

it.

We just knew we had a lot to prove. We did everything we could to show that we

could carry a show.

In other words, we weren't the main event, but we should have been. People

never, ever forget it because of the sheer totality of brutality.

in that match from two guys that, in most people's eyes, perception -wise,

shouldn't have had that kind of a match.

They were just hitting each other with everything. It was just, it wasn't, it

definitely wasn't pretty. Because Shane, you know, he would have took anything.

He just wanted to prove himself that he can go toe -to -toe, and he did that

night.

You're in there and just... beat the crap out of each other and everything

can do, the crowd is behind. That's one of the things that kept me going.

Let's finish this thing.

I do remember both Kurt and Shane wanting to actually work with each

other.

trying to come up with a logical scenario for us to get there. I mean,

medals with Kurt is always an easy one.

Here comes the money!

Here comes the money!

Dollar, dollar, dollar.

Paulus, save me, man!

Kurt, at the time, was...

Kind of goody -two -shoes, you know, the three I's. And by that time, you have

the entitled kid, meaning me.

You know, just feel like, oh, my God, you know, make these gold medals a big

deal. You know, which is obviously the antithesis of winning an Olympic gold

medal. So to come in, kind of interrupt it, bust his chops, and was like, let's

see where this goes.

It worked well. You know, curve didn't do.

Too, too much, but then Kurt Demme, the angle slam off the podium.

Oh, my God! I got the angle slam from atop the metal stand!

Kurt Angle slamming, and now he's got the ankle lock on Shane McMahon!

Kurt Angle's got the ankle lock on the owner of WCW!

And we were off to the races at that point.

It was the boss's son, and here's a cocky little arrogant...

Kid that, you know, is going after a guy that has got credentials out the ass in

Kurt Angle. Kurt, I mean, he was on fire.

So let's just let him really adapt it quickly to the business. I mean, Kurt is

just, as everyone is well aware, just such a natural coming from his, you

amateur background into WWE.

But it wasn't just what Kurt can do physically. It was also Kurt's

to put himself out there emotionally that really catapulted him into success.

So Shea McMahon, since you happen to be from the main streets of Greenwich,

I, Kurt Angle, challenge you, Shea McMahon, the king of the ring, to a

street fight.

What?

Well, the idea of the match as well was to give everyone something different and

to make that match unique and a card full of a lot of wrestling matches.

So they had to pull out a lot of things that you couldn't do in an ordinary

match.

Al Snow helped put it together, and I will tell you, he was phenomenal.

Al was really good at those hardcore matches, and Al was somebody who thought

outside of the box and thought a little differently.

I remember Shane kind of getting in touch with me and asking me if I'd be

willing to work with him and train him in preparing for his upcoming match with

Kurt Angle. I was flattered to be asked and honored to do so.

Then started to meet Shane to work with him and get him ready.

And occasionally, Kurt would drop in as well. And we had a great time.

Again, we both did see this as a huge opportunity because when you get a

platform to be able to showcase your talent, well, guess what? You need to

the door down.

Just don't knock on it. Just kick it down.

It was fish out of water. And Kurt Angle, the Olympic gold medalist, this

wrestler, to see how he would react. Now, all of a sudden, you're putting a

weapon in his hand.

And, yes, his body's a weapon, but then all of a sudden he has a kendo stick.

That's even scarier.

It had all the makings of it to be something very special. But then again,

know, there weren't a lot of these types of matches, specifically in WWE, that

people could point to. So it was a little bit of an unknown.

Kurt is so talented and so open to trying things and doing things.

Shane is fearless.

He quite honestly is. That really helped in teaching Shane some of the mechanics

of certain things that he wanted to do during the match.

I distinctly remember him wanting to learn to do the shooting star press.

That's a difficult move for an accomplished person who's pretty agile

used to doing aerial -type moves.

I took Shane step by step.

Through the process, you wouldn't stop. You wouldn't just go up and try and give

up. You just, you know, would repeatedly do it over and over again.

And I ended up, was able to learn, you know, how to be the shooting star

president. We used to have that.

Oh, my God!

Shane McMahon, the shooting star!

Kurt and I had the opportunity. It was in New Jersey. It was king of the rink.

How do you take on an Olympic gold medalist? Well, you try to outsmart him.

you put him in two matches prior to, to tire him out.

I did not prepare for the other matches, you know, with Christian

and Edge earlier that night on the pay -per -view.

You know,

I took away his second one, his second victory.

and second match.

And I felt like if the third wasn't nearly as good, I still had a good

But I also knew what was in this match.

And if we were able to complete the match as planned, I knew it would be a

stealer. The following contest scheduled for one fall is a street fight!

I remember when I got in the ring with Shane and we started going at it.

He punched me, and he opened up my eye. I had to get like six stitches of my

eye. And I remember seeing the blood, and I wiped the blood off my face. And I

said, look what you did to me, you MF -er.

I'm going to kick your ass.

Kirk came in like a house of fire.

You know, he was ready to go. He was like, woo -hoo, just going for a ride.

like, endure, endure, endure.

But how, again, do you?

take on someone with such specialized skill sets as Kurt Angle. Well, you

try to do what he does. I was like, all right, well, let's switch around to

stuff that he has no idea what it's going to be like.

And then that's when we started introducing, as I will say, equalizers.

Kurt has never been hit

with any of those things.

You know, literally, we pulled out everything.

There was no kitchen sink, but there might as well have been in there.

And then when we broke out the weapons, it just took the match to a whole

different level. Here we are, you know, beating the crap out of each other.

No disqualifications.

No count -outs here in this street fight.

I just pick him up, boom, suplex. All of a sudden he hit me. He goes, oh, my

God. I was like, oh. I looked up and I could see agony.

I mean, you know, we were already beat to hell, but this was another level. And

I'm looking at him and he says, I think I just broke my tailbone. And I said,

okay, that's great.

I said, get up.

I remember Kurt was hurt there, too.

At that point, I didn't know if he broke his tailbone.

I didn't know anything like that.

I remember focusing on Shane at that time.

It happened at the worst possible time because when I hit, that's what I

I had was a broken tailbone. It was cracked.

I mean, it wasn't broken off. I cracked it pretty good.

But the next spot was me throwing Shane through the glass.

These men in a very dangerous, precarious situation in position here,

the expose of concrete floor.

He eventually got me in a belly belly through the glass, but that didn't work

the first couple of times. So part of that was Kurt didn't have his usual

because he had just hurt his tailbone.

Right in front of the king of the ring set.

Shane McMahon thrown with a simplex upside down.

The problem with that is I had to arch my hips to get Shane through this glass.

I couldn't do it because it hurt too much.

So I couldn't give a lot of thrust when I threw Shane. The second problem is

they had the wrong glass.

The guy that was supposed to have the right panel there so you would break.

had actually reinforced the panel so that it wouldn't break during the pyro.

So instead of having a panel that would have gone easily, they had basically

painted over it with kind of a lacquer so that it would hold together a little

more firmly for the pyro. Well, it was reinforced pretty damn well. It didn't

shatter for the pyro, and it didn't shatter when it was supposed to either.

Gee, screw me.

And I hit that glass, and that glass was so hard. I hit it, and, you know, not

knowing anything, because it's all surreal, it was just upside down, and

like a lawn dart came right down on my head on the concrete.

It was boom, so I was like, you know, I could hear all the wonky sounds from it.

You know, it was like, everybody sounds like Charlie Brown for a second. You

know, like, womp, womp, womp. I was like, real boy.

Shane's head hit the floor. You could hear it, the whole sound throughout the

whole arena.

It was really loud.

And the fans even responded like... And

then finally, I said something in his ear. I called him a

wuss, basically, for lack of a better word. And all of a sudden, he got that

fire in his eyes. I'm like, oh, I know what I'm going through now.

And I went flying through.

Shane McMahon fell in a belly suplex.

The overhead burst through the blast in the concrete.

And Angle now, from that shattered blast, is bleeding from his shoulder.

Vince wanted it stopped.

And his only way to communicate that was through me.

And the only way for me to communicate that was to the referee that I'm

And I'm telling them over and over and over again. At one point in the match, I

went to the entry lane and was yelling at the referee, don't do that again.

Don't do it again.

Hey, I'm going, damn it. Come on. Oh, no.

Come on. Come on.

So on the way out, I went to suplex him again.

He didn't go through again, and I just decided, screw this, I'm going to throw

face first through.

Dangling man, head and face first right through that glass.

Probably the hardest thing to watch because I knew how bad they wanted it,

also knew how painful it was.

But for me, living it on the other side with Vince wanting to strangle me,

because he had no one else to strangle me. Couldn't go out and grab Kurt.

So I was the next best thing.

I remember Vince was cussing up a storm and telling him, don't put him through

the glass again.

He kept saying F words, F bombs.

And I'm hearing Vince in the background. I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, Kurt, do

not put Shane through this glass again. Do not try to put him through this glass

again. I don't care if Vince.

Probably would have walked out on stage.

They were going to get that in.

I remember later on talking to Kurt. Kurt, did you not hear me? I was telling

him 10 times, don't put the glass.

He goes, oh, I can't hear off this side of the ear.

When did that happen? He's like, oh, years ago.

He goes, yeah, I can't hear nothing off that ear.

I put Shane on that cart and I...

carted him down to the ring, and, I mean, he was bleeding so much.

I beat the crap out of him. He's landing on concrete floors. I remember him

kicking out of the count.

Angle's got the leg. My God, please.

I've got pain in the hand.

Refuses to lose.

Thank God he kicked because I didn't want to count him. I was proud of him.

You're really feeling the crowd now.

because they're like, yes, like, it didn't end. Let's keep it going.

It's one of those things when it's really working and great. You don't want

to end. You're like, oh, my God, that was great.

And then we, you know, we finished it up from there.

You can hear that lumber.

Wood on glass here.

Now what can I go do?

There was a small piece of plywood board. They put it up on top of the

looked over, and I'm sitting there, and I'm trying to...

Come on, bring it down, get it down.

And I seen the edge of this board just falling right off the rope.

And then both them guys, I just grabbed it, just held it, trying to count it,

make it not noticeable that I'm holding this piece of wood.

And thank God, because that board was, they were just going to collapse right

from the top rope.

And that was a really high angle slam, I remember, because I was way up there.

It seemed like I never was going to hit the ground.

Oh, no. It's the angle swing.

We're on the top.

Kurt Angle scored with the angle swing.

I remember Mike Keough on the count of three. One, two, three.

And Kurt said to me, thank God.

He goes, thank God that's over.

And he rolled over.

And I started chuckling, you know, inside. I was like, man, but we nailed

will sum up in two words the end of the match and it being over. Thank God.

I just was thankful that the match was over and that both guys were able to

walk. I never saw Vince.

All I know is that he was pretty pissed off.

I know that Vince didn't really want to see me or Shane. He was just going to

let himself calm down.

If he would have talked to us, he would have treated us like a father, and he

probably would have whipped our butts and told us that we did the wrong thing.

My dad was not there.

He was so upset that he had to...

excuse himself for a little while i'll go we'll go cool off a little bit i had

stashed a couple of uh a couple of beers on ice curbing from pittsburgh there's

this there's this local brand called iron city light i was like all right i

that man i gotta i gotta clink a beer with kurt so we're both in the we're

in the trainer's room with the doctors looking at us

You know, like idiots who are laughing. All right, you going to the hospital?

Great.

See you.

Like, he's off.

They're probably going to take me. You know, they get ready. But we're still

high -fiving each other. It was a really special moment.

I'm glad I did something like that because it's probably the only thing in

career I probably would have never done.

And I'm not a gimmick guy. I don't like gimmicks. I don't like doing gimmick

matches.

I like wrestling straight up. That's what I do. That's what I'm best at.

But I'm very proud of this match.

It went the way they wanted, when they wanted, did exactly what they wanted,

what they wanted from the audience at the right time for the reason from

beginning to end. I'm so incredibly flattered and honored and proud of what

helped do.

I was glad to get through that match.

And the ways that I helped throughout that match, whether it was the boards or

being there for him. It just makes you extremely proud. You couldn't have asked

for two more dedicated performers.

This was two guys who were determined to be the very best at what they did. They

gelled, they got along together, and they were able to create this memory

people will never forget.

The match for me is one of those things where Kurt and I bonded. You go through

something like that, and you entertained to the fullest. That's the ultimate

goal, and man, was it a ride.