During a recent appearance on “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer and current Raw General Manager Kurt Angle recalled his shoot fight with Brock Lesnar back in the day.
Below is what Angle had to say:
“I took him down once, he didn’t take me down at all, and it went 15 minutes. That’s pretty damn close. It was close. It really was. He had 90 lbs on me, but I probably took him down into the ropes a good seven or eight times, but he used the ropes to say, ‘hey, we’re out of bounds’ and that’s okay, but I did take him down once, he didn’t take me down at all, and it was really close. But, to me, Brock wasn’t the wrestler that I was.
Brock, as good of a wrestler he was, he wasn’t that good of a wrestler. He was a big, athletic kid that knew one move, a double-leg. And that’s not a discredit to him, it’s just a fact that we wasn’t real technical as a wrestler. So I knew a lot of technique, and always knew how to wrestle big guys, especially guys like Brock, so it wasn’t an issue to me.
Brock never really came close to taking me down that day because I knew what I had to do. I knew how to create angles on him and I had to make sure my hips were low and I had to make sure that my hands were in front of me, so he couldn’t wrap his strong-ass arms around my legs. I just knew how to keep him from scoring and I knew that I would eventually score on him and that’s what happened.
Brock Lesnar & Kurt Angle
I didn’t kick his butt. It was a very close wrestling match. And the reason I won is because, and I know Brock doesn’t want to hear this, but Brock is a beast. I mean, anything he touches, he can turn to gold. He’s not just a beast. He’s a great athlete. He’s smart. If he would’ve stayed in the NFL, just another half a year, he would have been a 10-time all-pro.
He was UFC Heavyweight Champion when he just tried that. When he comes to WWE, he’s WWE Champion when he tries that. He was NCAA Heavyweight Champion in wrestling. It’s like he wins everything. If Brock would’ve learned, if he would’ve went beyond NCAAs and learned at 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.”
