Kurt Angle discusses the original plans for his 2002 WWE Championship run and his match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 19.
Kurt Angle, although he's held the WWE World Championship on multiple occasions, never had a run with the title that exceeded 4 months. In 2002 while he was arguably entering the peak of his in-ring career, Kurt Angle defeated Big Show at WWE Armageddon 2002 and immediately turned heel, aligning with Paul Heyman and setting the stage for his WrestleMania 19 match against Brock Lesnar.
On an episode of his podcast covering Armageddon 2002, Kurt Angle explains that he was supposed to hold the WWE Championship for a year, beating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania.
"I was supposed to beat Brock, but I broke my neck beforehand," said Kurt. "So I had to do the job for Brock and lose to him and give him the title because I had that surgery. So they didn't want me to be Brock two times in a row. So Big Show beat Brock Lesnar, then I beat Big Show. That way, I didn't beat Brock twice, even though he ended up beating me at WrestleMania because I broke my neck."
Kurt later added, "I was supposed to have a title reign for a whole year. That was the whole plan. I was gonna beat Big Show. I was gonna carry it into WrestleMania, beat Brock, and continue on. Unfortunately, I broke my neck in February and I couldn't, I had to have surgery after WrestleMania."
Furthermore, Angle believes that he and Brock Lesnar were originally supposed to have a babyface vs. babyface encounter at WrestleMania 19 where perhaps he could have turned heel during the match in the same vein as Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania 17.
"I think that what they were planning on doing at WrestleMania was a double babyface match. They've done that before at WrestleMania. Obviously, during the match, somebody would turn heel like I think Stone Cold Steve Austin, when he wrestled The Rock at WrestleMania [17], they were both babyfaces. I think Stone Cold turned on The Rock and turned heel. So maybe they have the same plan for us. I'd imagine I'd be the one that would turn heel at WrestleMania, obviously, but the plan was — what I know is I was going to continue on as champion for almost a year so unfortunately, that didn't happen because I broke my neck," said Kurt.
Ultimately, Kurt Angle never wrestled another headlining match at WrestleMania outside of his match against Brock Lesnar in 2003 but he would retire at WrestleMania in 2019 against Baron Corbin.
On another recent podcast, Kurt Angle discussed Brock Lesnar potentially joining him in TNA Wrestling. Fans can read more about that at this link.
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