5 times WWE signed Olympic athletes

#3. Bad News Brown was an amazing judoka

Before he started his professional wrestling career, former WWE Superstar Bad News Brown was one of the best judokas on the planet. Brown was awarded a black belt after two-and-a-half years of training.

In his career, Brown won five AAU heavyweight championships and two gold medals in the Pan American Games. He relocated to Japan in 1970 and enrolled at Nihon University for a two-year period. Unfortunately, he suffered a serious knee injury while participating in the Olympic trials. This injury ruled him out of the 1972 Olympics.

Brown recovered from the injury and started training rigorously for the 1976 Olympics. It seemed he would be heartbroken again when he wasn't selected for Team USA, but Brown eventually made the cut after the United States Judo Assocation took the United States Olympic committee to court.

Brown went on to win a bronze medal and was the first African-American to medal in an individual event outside boxing or running. Due to politics, Bad News Brown retired and became a professional wrestler. Following an initial stint with NJPW, he joined WWE in 1978.

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#2. Ronda Rousey won bronze at the Olympics

A revolutionary in women's sports and a massive box-office attraction during her UFC run, Ronda Rousey was one of the biggest signings in WWE history. In addition to being part of the first women's match to main event WrestleMania, Rousey was also one of the driving forces behind WWE's deal with FOX.

Before she started her MMA career, Rousey became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in Judo when she captured a bronze in the 2008 games. The California native started training for judo when she was 11 with her mother, AnnMaria De Mars, the first American to win gold in the World Judo Championships.

Rousey took to judo like a duck to water and became the youngest competitor to qualify for the 2004 Olympics. After losing to the eventual silver medal winner, she captured gold in the World Junior Judo Championships that same year. Rousey also added a silver medal at the World Judo Championships and a gold at the Pan American games before ended here judo career with the 2008 Olympics.

Rousey made a few sporadic WWE appearances before she started her run with the company at the 2018 Royal Rumble.

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#1. Kurt Angle was WWE's first Olympic gold medalist

A two-time NCAA Division I Champion and a three-time All-American, WWE legend Kurt Angle found great success in collegiate wrestling. After graduating, he won a gold medal at the 1995 FILA World Wrestling Championships and started training for the Olympics under the tutelage of Dave Schultz.

After his mentor was tragically murdered, Angle joined the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club in his memory. When Angle won the Olympic trials for freestyle wrestling, he suffered even more misfortune with a severe neck injury.

Despite rehabilitating for five months, Angle needed to take numerous pain-killing injections to compete in the Olympics. But he gritted his way through the competition and defeated Abbas Jadidi to win the heavyweight gold medal in freestyle wrestling.

Kurt Angle signed with WWE two years later despite initially being reluctant to pursue a career in professional wrestling.