Kurt Angle Confirms Scrapped Plans For Year-Long WWE Title Reign

WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle won six world titles in WWE, but he only headlined WrestleMania once, when he defended the WWE Title against Brock Lesnar ar WrestleMaia 19 in 2003. Angle recently revealed that specific reign, which was his third as WWE Champion, did not go as originally planned.

"I was supposed to have a title reign for a whole year," Angle said on "The Kurt Angle Show." "That was going to be the whole plan. I was going to beat The Big Show. I was going to carry it into WrestleMania, beat Brock [Lesnar], and continue on. But unfortunately, I broke my neck in February and I couldn't. I couldn't and I had to have surgery after WrestleMania."

Angle defeated Big Show at Armageddon 2002 to begin the reign in question and successfully defended the title three times leading up to WrestleMania. Two of those defenses were against Chris Benoit, with the 2003 Royal Rumble match between the two as Angle's all-time personal favorite, and the other was against Lesnar. 

Instead of holding the title for a year, Angle lost the title to Lesnar in the main event at WrestleMania, ending his reign at 105 days. Following that WrestleMania, Angle was out of action for about two and a half months, returning to TV that June. Angle had a history of neck issues dating back to before he became a wrestler in WWE, as he famously won an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling with a "broken freaking neck." Angle went on to regain the title from Lesnar for the title at Vengeance that July.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "The Kurt Angle Show" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.