Kurt Angle Talks About His Decision To Adopt The Ankle Lock, Renaming The Olympic Slam

Kurt Angle settles the “Angle Lock” vs. “Ankle Lock” debate.

On the newest episode of his Kurt Angle Show on AdFreeShows, the WWE Hall of Famer spoke about the build to No Way Out 2001 and his Championship match with The Rock. One of the things noted during the discussion was that this is when Angle first started using a submission finisher. He explains that the decision to use the Ankle Lock came about because he wanted something to represent his wrestling background and present him as more credible and dangerous. Here is what he said about who made the decision to use that specific hold:

“Well, it was me. I was, you know, being a shooter and having the history I did I wanted to come up with a submission hold that I could start using. I knew that Ken Shamrock used the Ankle Lock and he was gone doing MMA and I figured I might as well take that. You know, Ken Shamrock wasn’t upset about it, he actually was very cool about it. Taking his finish and using it helped me dearly. It made me a more credible wrestler and more dangerous.”

Angle continues on to say that the decision to adopt a submission had nothing to do with the fact that the Olympic committee was threatening to sue the company if they continued to call his finisher the “Olympic Slam.” He also shared a funny story about Michael Cole’s reaction to finding out about the potential suit.

“That was the idea, I could give it to anybody, any size, it wouldn’t matter. It had nothing to do with the Olympic Slam getting changed to the Angle Slam. That was the Olympic committee that was threatening to sue us if we used the word Olympic because they own that word, and so I had to change the Olympic Slam to the Angle Slam. It’s kind of funny because when Michael Cole found out that the Olympic committee was upset, the next week on RAW he said Olympic Slam at least 15 times because he wanted to piss them off. He just kept saying it. It was hilarious.”

As for the debate about whether it was called the Angle Lock or Ankle Lock, the Olympian says that it was always intended to be “Ankle Lock” because that’s what Ken Shamrock called it. He didn’t want to take away from or make it his own out of respect for Shamrock.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit The Kurt Angle Show with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.