A current WWE Superstar wrestled at London 2012...
Tuesday 23 August 2016 16:08, UK
Steel chairs and kendo sticks may not be used at the Olympics - but that does not mean stars from the wrestling world have not enjoyed success at the Games.
Kurt Angle is perhaps the most famous example, the WWE legend winning a gold medal at Atlanta in 1996 in the 100 kilogram freestyle wrestling event.
Both Angle's victory and his route to the Olympics were not without drama.
The Pennsylvania native won the gold-medal match against Iran's Abbas Jadidi on officials' decision after the competitors wrestled to an eight-minute 1-1 draw, a result Jadidi vigorously protested.
But that was nothing compared to Angle's frenetic build-up to the Games, in which his wrestling coach, Dave Schultz, was murdered and he fractured two vertebrae, split two discs in his neck and pulled four muscles.
Schutlz's death, at the hands of crazed millionaire John du Pont, and depicted in the 2014 film Foxcatcher starring Mark Ruffalo, Steve Carrell and Channing Tatum, came just six months before the Atlanta Games, around the same time Angle suffered his neck injury.
Angle suffered the startling blow during his semi-final match at the national wrestling trials, yet somehow managed to transform a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead with just a minute left, before sneaking to a win in the final courtesy of a judges' decision.
The then-27-year-old was forced to take several pain-reducing injections in his neck as he prevailed in the Olympic trials and he still felt severe twinges as he scooped gold in Atlanta.
He never let that latter fact be forgotten, regularly announcing that he had won his Olympic crown with a "broken freakin' neck" while en route to landing myriad titles in WWE, including six world championships, the United States Championship and Intercontinental Title.
Angle's love of the Olympics has remained and he had hoped to compete at London 2012, before a knee injury scuppered his hopes of competing at the American team trials.
A WWE Superstar WAS in action in the English capital, however, in the form of Chad Gable, who was recently drafted to Smackdown from NXT.
Gable, real names Charles Betts, made it through the opening round of the 84kg Greco-Roman Wrestling event, before losing his second match by a narrow 1-0 margin.
Other WWE stars to wrestle at the Olympics include The Iron Shiek, who featured for Iran in Mexico City in 1968 before acting as assistant coach for Team USA in Munich in 1972, and Danny Hodge, who claimed the silver medal at middleweight while freestyle wrestling in Melbourne in 1956.
Alberto Del Rio, currently wrestling for WWE on Smackdown, could have swelled that list at the Sydney Games, in 2000, but a lack of funding left Mexico unable to send a squad.
The Olympic exploits of WWE personnel have not been limited to wrestling, though.
Mark Henry competed in weightlifting for America at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, coming 10th in the super-heavyweight category in Barcelona and 14th in Atlanta four years later when he was severely hampered by a back injury.
Plus, Allen Coage - better known as Bad News Brown during his time in WWE - won bronze in judo at the 1976 Games in Montreal, and remains the only American to win an Olympic medal in judo's heavyweight division.
That accolade must rank as Coage's finest - though serving as a bodyguard for American songstress Aretha Franklin probably runs it a close second!
And finally there is Floyd Mayweather.
'Money' has never been a fully-fledged WWE Superstar but the unbeaten multi-weight world champion, who came third in the featherweight division at Atlanta 1996, has a WWE victory under his belt - knocking out Big Show at WrestleMania albeit with the assistance of brass knuckles!
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