(crowd cheering) (upbeat music)
- Transition from amateur wrestling
to pro wrestling is astronomical.
I was a state champion in high school,
a junior national champion in high school,
I was a two-time NCAA Division 1 champion in college.
I was world champion in 1995
and Olympic gold medalist in 1996.
I believe that I opened the door for a lot
of amateur wrestlers to come in.
Once I broke the ice,
a lot of people followed.
- [Announcer] Brock Lesnar from Minnesota is your
heavyweight champion in the year 2000.
- Brock Lesnar is known as the beast incarnate.
He is huge and skyrocketed
just as fast as Kurt Angle did
upon making his transition
from amateur wrestling
to professional wrestling.
- Both had many things in common.
We were both heavyweights,
both won the NCAA championships,
we both got into professional wrestling,
so we had a lot of identical things occurring in our career.
- So do you think that Brock from day one
had his sights set on you as far as like,
"We're gonna be compared to one another.
This is who I have to try to aim to be better than,
who I have to aim to make more of an impact.
Do you feel like he saw that?
- Yeah, I think so because I was feeling the same way.
You know, when Brock came in
he kind of had a chip on his shoulder.
- That was pretty good.
(laughing)
- I think a rivalry between
Brock and Kurt was inevitable
because amateur wrestling
is the most competitive sport
out there.
It's one-on-one.
You can't blame a teammate.
You can't really blame an official.
It's just two guys out there seeing who's number one.
- We had an incident the first time I met him.
Somebody came up to him and said,
"Hey, how do you think you would do
against Kurt Angle in a real match?"
He said, "I'd kick his butt."
- A shoot match is when it is real.
These two guys are legitimately going for it
trying to show who is the better competitor.
- Everything has to be a competition with you,
doesn't it?
- Yeah, it does. I'm a very competitive guy.
You know that.
- So I walked up to him and I said,
"Do you wanna try me right now?"
He said, "No, I have sandals on, I don't have shoes.
I said, "That's all right.
Take your sandals off. We'll go barefoot."
He was like, "No, no, I don't want to do it."
So I let it go that day.
But about a month later, he was in the ring
in South Dakota before a show,
and he was wrestling Big Show,
and Big Show at this point in time was about 530 pounds,
and Brock was picking him up and slamming him,
and I was like, "Whoa, this guy's the real deal.
He's a powerful man.
He's lifting up this 500-pound man
and taking him down like it's nothing."
And so when Brock's back was turned to me,
I was outside the ring,
and Big Show was on the other side of Brock facing me.
I said, "Big Show, get out of the ring."
And he said, "Okay,"
and he backed up and got outta the ring,
and Brock says, "Where you goin'?
And I snuck up behind him and tapped him on his shoulder.
I said, "It's time to go, Brock."
(laughing)
- He just had to, right?
- [Kurt] Yeah. There was no choice. Yeah.
- There was no getting out of it.
He was like, "Oh, this isn't going away.
Like maybe I can just say I don't have the right shoes.
Whatever man, it's fine."
- It was eventually gonna happen.
Definitely, yeah.
And there was no way the wrestlers
weren't gonna let it happen.
They were gonna make sure it did.
- Well, especially like you said,
he came in with a bit of a chip on his shoulder,
so it's like win or lose,
you needed him to be humbled to be like,
- [Kurt] Yeah.
- "All right. Even if he won, he was gonna get like tested."
- Well, I had to make sure I didn't lose.
We had a good competition.
It was very tight.
Brock's a legitimate NCAA champion.
I believe that if he were to continue on wrestling,
he probably would've made the Olympic team,
so I do believe he's Olympic caliber.
And, you know, and did I beat him?
Yes. But it wasn't by much.
If I would've lost to Brock,
I would've gotten (bleep) for the rest of my career
from the boys. - [Lita] Yep.
- Yeah.
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