How Kurt Angle Won an Olympic Gold Medal with a Broken Neck

"I had four broken vertebrae in my neck. I had two discs sticking directly in my spinal cord. They had to cut those discs. I had a badly bruised spinal cord. That's not good. If your spinal cord ever gets bruised, you're getting close to paralysis," Angle told fellow WWE legend The Undertaker on Six Feet Under with The Undertaker.

Angle landed right on his head during a semi-final match of the US Open. "When the move was completed, I was like, 'Whoa, something is wrong.' I couldn't feel my arms. My neck was killing me."

Angle turned around from that match to compete in the US Open finals just 6 hours later. "I had chiropractors cracking my neck because I thought my neck was out of alignment. I didn't know it was broken," recalled Angle with a laugh.

Angle won 0-0 in the Open finals against Kerry McCoy, a 2x Olympian from Penn State. Angle won on a technicality because McCoy had three stalling calls while Angle had two.

With his neck broken, Angle did not go straight from the US Open to the Olympics; he still had another round of Olympic Trials to compete in to qualify for the big stage.

"So, I went to a doctor and he told me, 'You're done. You can't do anything.' So, I went to another doctor to get a second opinion." According to Angle, the second doctor agreed, but told Angle he could get him ready for the trials, which were scheduled to begin four weeks from their appointment.

How did the doctor get him ready?

Twelve shots of Novocain were administered by a different doctor who traveled with Angle to the trials.

Retelling what his doctor told him, Angle said, "Five minutes before the match, you'll forget your neck is broken. You'll wrestle more freely. But I'm warning you: an hour after the matches are over, you're going to be in excruciating pain from the abuse your neck takes during those matches."

Angle agreed with the plan.

"It worked."

Angle beat his opponent in the trials finals 7-0. "The crazy thing is, because he was so focused on my neck, he forgot that he was wrestling."

Though he won decisively, Angle broke his neck again in that match.

"I was back to square one again. The next five weeks, I couldn't do much training."

Repeating the process of injection, Angle went on to defeat Abbas Jadidi of Iran in the freestyle wrestling competition of the 1996 Olympics.

"It was the greatest thing I've ever accomplished in my life. It is something that I've dreamed about since I was a kid. To know that I was able to make that dream come true is just phenomenal. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it, especially with a broken neck."

Unfortunately for Angle, he went on to break his neck four more times in his professional wrestling career.

While his injuries have created challenges for Angle, the four-time WWE and six-time TNA champion is among the most respected legends in the business. His matches against the likes of Brock Lesnar, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Edge, and Rey Mysterio are all-time classics that fans still rave about to this day.

Angle was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017 and competed in his final match at WrestleMania 35.