Vince McMahon Allowed Kurt Angle & Shawn Michaels To Decide On Winner Of WWE WrestleMania Match

It is one of the most highly regarded WrestleMania clashes of all time, and was a certified dream match when it happened, as Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels finally went one-on-one at WWE WrestleMania 21.

Angle would eventually emerge from the bout victorious after forcing Michaels to tap to the Ankle Lock, and as Angle himself revealed on the Kurt Angle Show podcast, Vince McMahon left it up to himself and HBK to decide who’d walk out of Mania the winner:

“Listen, there’s no doubt in my mind that if Shawn was going to lose at WrestleMania to me, I’m gonna have to pay it back. There’s no doubt about it. Yes, that’s how it works. And I don’t blame him. I was willing to do that, because he did me a huge favour,” said Angle. “Actually, Vince didn’t have a winner for WrestleMania. He had us work it out between ourselves. And Shawn said, Listen, I’ll put you over. Because I know, this is what he said, and I totally forgot this. He said, You know what, you’re gonna end up doing a programme with Cena afterward, and what you need is a good win right now.

“So that is why I knew that I was going to work with Cena, even though I didn’t, I thought it was going to work with Cena. Yeah, because Shawn told me, you should get the win right here because you’re going to be paired up against John Cena after this.”

Shawn would get his win back at Vengeance in June 2005.

H/T: Inside the Ropes