Kurt Angle Reveals Scrapped One-Year WWE Title Reign

WrestleMania 19 was a monumental event, featuring the last ever clash between The Rock and Steve Austin, a first ever meeting of Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho, and a main event that saw Brock Lesnar defeat Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship.

Going into Mania 19, Angle had been in possession of the title for 105 days since beating Big Show for it at Armageddon 2002, and according to Angle on the Kurt Angle Show podcast, he was originally set to hold the title for a full year before dropping it:

"I was supposed to have a title reign for a whole year. 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,” said Angle.

Angle did take time off after Mania, but he’d take the title back from Lesnar a little under four months after dropping it to ‘The Next Big Thing’, winning a triple threat match for the gold at Vengeance in July 2003.

H/T: Wrestling Inc.