October 23, 2002 - It's a little later, and perhaps not so leviathan, but as in past years, the SmackDown! Countdown is back. THQ has seen fit to send in a new WWE wrestling game, and so we'll be updating on a daily basis with regular looks at the most popular competitors of World Wrestling...well, we're supposed to call it Entertainment now, but we just can't quite get the hang of it.

So, as Marc Nix once said so many months ago, let's ring the damn bell and get it on, yeah?

"Your Olympic Hero" Kurt Angle

Height
6'2"

Weight
220 lbs.

Hometown
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Finisher
Angle Slam

We have to say, Shut Your Mouth has not been kind to Kurt Angle. The cueball look doesn't come off so bad in real life, but the relatively low model and texture detail in the SmackDown 3D engine, combined with the already-flat look of his default red singlet, the poor guy looks...well, watch the movie and see what you think. It ain't really that pretty, in our opinion.

Which is a shame, because Angle is easily one of the top five or top three entertainers in American pro wrestling today, and his has been one of the quickest leaps to the top in the history of the business. How many months passed between "Kurt Angle, developmental talent" and "Kurt Angle, World Champion"? Not all that many.

His success is well-deserved, coming as it does on the strength of superior athletic ability, a firm grasp of many different pro wrestling styles, and a genuinely winning personality. And he also threw Shane McMahon through that big honking chunk of plate glass, for which we will forever love him dearly. With luck, some more time in Season Mode will let us unlock some more flattering outfits for the guy.

Hey, I still wanna hear you guys defend the Undertaker.


Check out Kurt Angle's intro in Shut Your Mouth