Kurt Angle On Brock Lesnar: "It's Money First, Passion Second"

On the latest episode of The Kurt Angle Show, the Olympic Gold Medalist spoke about Brock Lesnar leaving WWE. Lesnar left the company in 2004 after a feud with Goldberg and then wrestled for New Japan Pro Wrestling a year later. He said Brock contacted him about NJPW and they wrestled each other. Angle noted that Brock has always been all about the money.

"Brock did approach me about working in Japan, I ended up going over for NJPW," Angle said. "I had a match with Brock, we had a phenomenal match over there and I won the World Title from him. Brock after the match said 'Hey, when we do the press conference and we're sitting up there in front of the press, tell them you want a rematch with me.' I didn't know at the time, but I heard Brock was making a ton of money on these matches, he was remaining the champion as long as he could and then they wanted to take the title off of him so he wanted to do the match. He wouldn't do it with just anybody, so he told New Japan if you bring Kurt Angle over, I'll do the job for him. They brought me over, he did the job for me and then he wanted to have a rematch so he can make more money.

"Brock is all about money. He's a very stern businessman. Everything revolved around money for him. It's money first, passion second."

Being two wrestlers with an amateur wrestling background, it was only fitting that both Angle and Lesnar had ties to the UFC. On a recent podcast, Angle revealed that he contacted Dana White about working for the UFC, but he was dealing with too many injuries at the time to actually fight. Angle also said that Brock was talking to Dana and the UFC while they were together in NJPW.

"The last time I had spoken to him, this was before NJPW, was right before he quit to try out from pro football," Angle said. "He told me he was considering trying out for pro football, he was also considering UFC but he didn't know which one to pick. He decided to do pro football first and that was his option.

"I knew eventually he would end up trying for the UFC, I was surprised it took him this long because I believe it was at least 4 years before he got into the UFC. When I was in Japan wrestling him, I knew he was working a deal with the UFC at that time to come in. Him and Dana White were already in talks for him to go to the UFC."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Kurt Angle Show with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.