Angle was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon Township, Pennsylvania, the son of Jackie and David Angle. He attended Clarion University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a degree in education in 1993. Angle has four older brothers (one of whom, Eric, is also a wrestler) and a sister, Le'Anne, who died in 2003. His father, a crane operator, was killed in a construction accident when Angle was 16, and Angle dedicated both his career and his autobiography to his father.

Throughout mid-2000, after aligning himself with Edge & Christian, "Team ECK" (Edge, Christian, and Kurt) feuded with Too Cool and Rikishi, with Angle defeating Rikishi in the finals of the King of the Ring tournament. He went on to feud with Triple H after a love triangle between them and Triple H's wife, Stephanie McMahon, developed. As a change to the intended storyline of Stephanie turning on her husband and going with Angle, he lost to Triple H at Unforgiven. Before the match started, however, he bumped into a returning Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was looking for the perpetrator who ran him over at the previous year's Survivor Series. Angle offered him his friendship and one of his gold medals, but Austin was not pleased by telling him that he would keep it in a nice safe place, to which Austin referred to "right up his ass" before attacking Angle and throwing his medal to the floor.  Following his feud with Triple H, Angle received another push and began pursuing the WWF Championship, defeating The Rock at No Mercy, after botched interference on The Rock's behalf from Rikishi. With his victory over The Rock, Angle became the first wrestler to have won both an Olympic Gold medal and the world championship. Angle retained the WWF Championship for the rest of the year in matches with The Undertaker at Survivor Series and in a six-man Hell in a Cell match at Armageddon. After beating Triple H at the Royal Rumble, Angle eventually lost the title to The Rock at No Way Out.  Angle then feuded with Chris Benoit whom he defeated at WrestleMania X-Seven, but lost to him at Backlash in an Ultimate Submission match; Benoit defeated Angle four falls to three in sudden-death overtime. Continuing the feud, Angle again defeated Benoit in a two out of three falls match at Judgment Day. Benoit pinned Angle after an Angle Slam in a "Pinfalls Only" fall, and then Angle made Benoit submit with the ankle lock in the "Submissions Only" fall. Angle won the third fall, a ladder match, with the help of Edge and Christian.

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