In an interview with Sports Illustrated (via Fightful), Kurt Angle spoke about his rise to the main event in WWE and credited the Rock with helping him get to the top. Angle defeated Rock at No Mercy 2000 to win his first WWE Championship. But when you go in there with an ego, you’re gonna get in trouble very quickly. So I never had that ego, and I always felt that these stars that I was gonna wrestle, like The Rock and Stone Cold. He was my first World Championship match, where I won the World Championship.