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Kurt Angle On Brock Lesnar’s Shooting Star Press At WrestleMania 19, Suggesting The Move, Original Plan For Title Reign
On the debut edition of The Kurt Angle Show, Kurt Angle discussed Brock Lesnar botching a Shooting Star Press during their WrestleMania 19 main event, suggesting the move, and much more. You can read his comments below.
Kurt Angle on Brock Lesnar botching a Shooting Star Press at WrestleMania 19: “When Brock was in the corner, I was looking out of the corner of my eye while I was laying in the ring. When he went to jump, he hesitated, and did a pause, and just said ‘Ah, fuck it, I’m gonna go.’ I think that hesitation caused him to fall off balance forward, so he couldn’t get full rotation when he turned backward to flip. And he didn’t quite make it. When he landed, I thought he was dead, I thought he broke his neck, and I thought he was dead. He wasn’t responding.
“I said ‘Brock, are you okay?’He wasn’t saying anything. I went over and I covered him and I said, ‘You gotta kick, you gotta kick’ because I did not want to hold that title for another day. I was kind of selfish, hoping Brock would kick out so I wouldn’t have to hold the title. He kicked out, and I told him ‘Can you get up?’ He said ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘I’ll lift you up’. I went to lift him up, and I said, ‘When I get you up, scoop me up in the air and F5 me and cover me’. I said ‘Can you do it?’ He said, ‘I think so.’ So, he went and did it, he covered me, and then you know, he won.”
On convincing Lesnar to go to the hospital: “Afterward, he was so disheveled. He was confused, didn’t know where he was. He was supposed to come over and pick me up and hug me, and we were supposed to become friends. He wasn’t coming over, so I told the ref to tell him to come over. I’m done selling, and he’s supposed to pick me up. So, I walked to him and hugged me and said, ‘Are you alright?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ We got in the back and had an ambulance waiting to take him, but he wouldn’t go. He was not gonna go. He was being stubborn. He was pretty pissed off, and I had to talk him into getting into the ambulance to go to the hospital. Eventually, he did.”
On being the one to suggest the move to Lesnar: “It was my idea. Brock had no plans of doing the Shooting Star Press. I told him, ‘Hey, I know you used to do it in OVW. This is a great WrestleMania moment.’ And boy was it, especially that he messed it up. Everybody remembers the botched spot. It took a downturn and went for the worse and not the better. It’ll be remembered forever……I feel badly because it was my idea, and Brock had no plans of using it. I talked him into it, and I feel kind of bad about it.”
On the match itself: “I think the slip was pretty substantial. I think people probably wouldn’t have remembered, but it is impressive to see a 320-pound man doing a Shooting Star Press. So, I guess we’ll never know which would be the more popular moment……from a wrestling aspect, I think Brock and I put on a pretty good clinic. We had everything represented there – everything from amateur wrestling and pro wrestling. We told a great story. We started out wrestling slowly, built up, and got to the heat and to the comeback and the finish. The match couldn’t have been structured any better.”
On the original plan for his title reign: “I was supposed to go on a lengthy title run. This changed because I broke my neck. I probably would’ve held that title to the following Mania. It was hard to accept because you think about all the main events you’re gonna do with the World title. You’re gonna make a boatload of money that year. That was all taken away from me. It’s kind of depressing, but what are you gonna do?”
If using any of the above quotes, please credit The Kurt Angle Show with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.