Kurt Angle spoke about a wide range of topics on a recent episode of The Kurt Angle Show.
During it, the WWE Hall of Famer discussed why he beat Brock Lesnar to win the IWGP Championship while working for TNA:
“He (Brock Lesnar) called me out of the blue. I guess he didn’t want to do a job for anybody over in Japan. He was IWGP Champion. It was the third belt that we wrestled for, the IWGP third belt. I heard Brock was stripped of that title, but he wasn’t stripped because I beat him for that title. Brock wanted me to come over to Japan to wrestle him so he could lose to me, and I would end up losing to somebody over in Japan. That was his idea. I told him I would do it. We were good friends, very close, and if he wanted me to come over and do that for him, I was willing to do it. TNA gave me the approval.
Obviously, TNA got paid for those events because they were paying me, so I didn’t see any money from the events in New Japan for the IWGP Title even when I continued to defend it. I think I did it three more times. TNA was getting that money, and that’s when I put a stop to it and said, ‘Ok, I can’t be going over to Japan and not making any money. This is ridiculous.’ That’s when I dropped the title because they wanted me to hold it for a while longer, and I said, ‘No. I’m going to drop it the next time I wrestle in Japan.’”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription