Humblebrags don’t get any better than Olympic champion and WWE legend Kurt Angle’s latest revelation that he dropped heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar seven times during their famous behind-the-scenes fight in the WWE.
The off-camera scuffle between Angle and Lesnar has passed into wrestling folklore. Angle, 48, has previously confirmed the fight took place, saying: “When I got done with him, I didn’t want to wrestle him again.”
In February, a slightly differing account of the showdown was reported, when former WWE employee Bruce Prichard claimed the pair’s fight was broken up by WWE chairman Vince McMahon after eight seconds.
Angle has now offered more details about the fight, and it paints a slightly more impressive picture of his own performance when he stepped up to one of the scariest men on the planet.
Pritchard in February claimed the fight took place because mischievous rival wrestlers ran a campaign to drive them apart by telling both of them the other guys was talking junk about them.
It worked.
Angle has admitted the reason he challenged Lesnar was because he had been told Lesnar said he would wipe the floor with the Olympic champion if they ever tried to get it on for real.
“Someone asked him how I would do against him and he said, ‘He’s too small, I’d kill him,’” Angle told the “Chris Jericho Podcast.”
“So I walked up to him and said, ‘Did you say I’m too small for you that you would kill me?’
“He said to me, ‘Kurt, you’re what? 215 [pounds]?’ I said, ‘I’m 225 [pounds].’ He said, ‘Well, I’m 315.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t have a problem, let’s get in the ring.’ He said, ‘I only have sandals on.; I said, ‘Well, let’s go in our bare feet.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to do it.’”
While wrestlers were preparing just hours before a show in North Dakota in 2003, Angle challenged Lesnar to a wrestling match. (Angle won the gold medal for freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Lesnar is also a former NCAA wrestling champion.)
“One day he’s in North Dakota and he’s wrestling Big Show and he’s picking this 535-pound man up and this is when Big Show was really big,” he said.
“He double-legged him and picked him up in the air and slammed him on his back. I thought, ‘Holy s–t, I might not be able to handle this kid.’ I never saw anybody do that.”
Despite Lesnar’s intimidating show, Angle took his opportunity and approached the ring and motioned for Big Show to exit the ring so he could be left alone with Lesnar.
Then he coaxed Lesnar into one of the very few fights the athletic beast supposedly has ever lost.
“I walked up behind Brock and tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Let’s go,’” Angle said. “He turned around and I said, ‘Let’s go.’ And all the wrestlers around the ring, like lumberjack style, looked at him and said, ‘You’re not getting out, bro.’
“As good of a wrestler as he was, he wasn’t that good of a wrestler. He was a big athletic kid, who knew one move: a double leg. That’s no discredit to him. It’s just the fact that he wasn’t really that technical as a wrestler. I knew a lot of techniques, and I always knew how to wrestle big guys, especially guys like Brock. It wasn’t really an issue for me. Brock never really came close to taking me down that day. I knew what I had to do. I knew how to create angles on him. I had to keep my hips low and I knew I had to keep my hands in front of me so Brock couldn’t wrap his strong-ass arms around my legs. I just knew how to keep him from scoring. I knew that I would eventually score on him, and that’s what happened.
“If Brock would have gone beyond the NCAAs and went on to the Olympic level, there’s no way in hell I would have beat Brock. He is that good of an athlete, but he just didn’t know wrestling like I did. He didn’t know the sport of wrestling. He didn’t know the techniques and the little tricks and triggers that go with it.
“I was never afraid of Brock or of getting into the ring with him. I weighed 225, he weighed 315. He was 90 pounds heavier then me. It wasn’t a problem for me.”
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