Kurt Angle was no fan of his face becoming a meme online but the Olympic Gold Medalist has since been able to embrace the situation.
On a recent edition of the “Wrestling Life” podcast, Angle shared his thoughts on the meme that shows the former WWE Champion looking disheveled. He said,
“I was pissed at first. I was like, ‘Why are they making fun of me?’ Paul Bromwell, my co-host on the Kurt Angle show, was like, ‘Kurt they’re not making fun of it. This is actually a good thing.’ I was like, ‘it seems like everyone is making fun of me.’ ‘No, the look on your face was funny and they’re using it for memes.’ ‘Well, I might as well sell photos.’
“I started doing it and thank you everyone who bought a meme photo because I made a substantial amount of money doing it. It was worth being the meme of the year. I guess I won an award for meme of the year already. It gave me good exposure. There people who don’t even know who I am that know who I am now because of it. I trended worldwide.
“I’m getting people ordering the photo from all different parts of the world. It’s crazy. This meme photo took on a life of its own and I tried to capitalize on it. I did, thank God. I think anybody would have done the same. I had fun with.”
Angle was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017. He retired from in-ring competition two years later with a loss to Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35.