Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle | Tales From Backstage
The rivalry between Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle was one of the most anticipated storylines in WWE during an otherwise creatively-barren early-2000s, but the company understood the importance of timing and positioning when it came to their eventual first on-screen collision. The market leader knew that the battle had immense potential, and a credible feud between arguably the two most credible signees ever could serve as the centrepiece for the company’s post-Attitude Era future, whatever that might actually be.
However, the Paul Heyman-led creative team also recognised that such a monumental match needed to be built up properly, with both men maintaining different kinds of dominance in the eyes of the fans. As a result and in direct contrast to what was taking place behind the scenes, they were kept separate on-screen for much of 2002. The strategy was simple enough; WWE were building towards a WrestleMania XIX headliner.
Ahead of setting the wheels in motion, Brock’s meteoric rise was presented as the beginning of a new era in WWE, while Kurt, dropped to the tag division in a faux-veteran role to obscure what was to come. At the back end of the year, that man again Heyman turned heel on Brock, and through a slightly circuitous route ended up alongside Angle as he became Champion instead. This ostensibly cleared the way for Lesnar to win the Royal Rumble as a babyface and cement his status as the top star, top guy and top face with a 'Show Of Shows' win, but nothing was to go as simply as that. By the climax of the 'Show Of Shows', WWE most likely would have preferred something resembling the real fight.
It's a miracle the match got to the ring. In the weeks leading up to the event, it was revealed that Kurt Angle would need significant time off to deal with a serious re-aggravated neck injury, and with immediate effect. Chris Benoit was positioned as a potential replacement having recently been in and around the main events himself, and the dream match between the two like-for-likes was apparently as good as done.
To this end, WWE even promoted the match for a pre-WrestleMania edition of SmackDown that appeared to be an excuse for an early title switch. Miraculously, this served as confirmation that the match was actually set to go ahead - in a brilliant twist and second playing of a trick on the audience by WWE and the Angle family, Kurt's real life brother and convincing lookalike Eric stepped in as a distraction in order for Kurt to steal the win. It didn't get the Olympian out of his title obligations, nor WWE out of the match at WrestleMania, and yet more questions were asked about how Kurt could possibly walk out of WrestleMania in one piece.
As we'd come to find out, it wasn't him we should have been worried about. The man that "won a gold medal with a broken freakin' neck" made it through a WrestleMania main event with the same prognosis, and in fact expedited an unlikely comeback that very same year through some pioneering non-invasive surgery. Meanwhile, a fully fit and healthy Lesnar on the way in was almost in an even worse state than Angle himself on the way out.
The shooting star press he'd wowed OVW fans with on his ascendency hadn't yet been rolled out under the bright lights of main roster WWE, and the botched attempt seen around on the world on 'The Grandest Stage' became all the main event was ultimately remembered for. The ominous sight of Brock being too far away from Kurt before he leaps is bad enough, but the freeze frame shot of the airborne 'Beast' upside down as he under-rotates and effectively tombstone's himself is as chilling as anything the mind's eye can conjur from the real fight the pair had months prior.
Infamously, though Lesnar miraculously survived without more serious longterm damage, he knocked himself clean out in the moment, and there are stars in his eyes as Kurt effectively F5s himself to pull a finish out of the fire. The support and cooperation is miraculous, and to juxtapose that with the sight of the two grappling for dominance in an arena corridor is the sort of mental image only a wrestling fan gets to conjure.
Fiercely competitive in every single respect, there were no compromises on quality granted in the worked contest anymore than there were ones afforded in the real fight. Lesnar might have been acting on (in hindsight) bad advice in attempting the dangerous move for the first time in over a year after his most arduous and high pressure match ever. But he was also driven to be the very best in his field as he had been in every aspect of his life. Angle was seemingly ignoring good advice even going out there, but his fire simply couldn't be extinguished either, and the man himself would later go on to show that there were times that he was willing to risk more than the head on his shoulders in an endless quest to prove himself without compare.
The two went on to feud throughout the summer with the dynamics switched after a Lesnar heel turn, before 'The Next Big Thing' left the wrestling business behind for the fat end of a decade in 2004, just two years and millions of dollars on from his debut. Only then did the difference between the two men reveal itself. Brock made no secret of his desire to get off the human meat grinder that was the WWE road schedule, having suddenly looked towards bigger and different dreams in the NFL and ultimately the UFC. Angle, meanwhile, couldn't.
The quest to be the best never stopped for him, and while a younger Lesnar prioritised new goals and renewed health, his enemy-turned-friend couldn't switch off the desire to own the pro wrestling space even when it nearly took everything from him. Unlike many cases of contemporaries coming to very real blows (or in this case, holds) in locker rooms without cameras, Angle and Lesnar's scrap remains more of a footnote in their respective stories.
What Angle managed through peerless consistency in the 2000s, Lesnar cracked through star power and aura in the 2010s. What both of them managed was to leave enough of a mark on a field neither of them chose as a first love to make it look as if it was all they were born to do. The scandal of the scuffle was left to gather dust as the men at the centre of the lock-up made sure to do more when the red light was on rather than when the red mist descended.