Dolph Ziggler says he was almost Kurt Angle’s protege in storyline

“A little before I got called up to do the Spirit Squad I was told by the in-between when you’re hearing you’re gonna get called up to WWE, the main roster. They were like, ‘Hey, they really like that you have an amateur wrestling background’ and I had my crew cut, my military haircut. They go, ‘It’s great that you have no tattoos, we’re kinda looking at you as Kurt Angle’s protegee or something.’ If Kurt Angle hadn’t won that gold medal and came to WWE I might not have even got a chance. But because he was so good and he did so well when he got here they’re like, ‘maybe we can give some smaller guys a try and because of him I got a chance to work here. And they go, hey maybe we consider you as his protege and I go, ‘What? This is the craziest thing ever!’ Cut to four weeks later and I’m a cheerleader with four other guys, but still the thought was there that maybe that was gonna happen.”

source: Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia