How Kurt Angle Can Deal with His “Brock Lesnar” Problem

According to everyone (read: Roman Reigns), Brock Lesnar simply does not care. He only shows up to get paid, and he does not respect the fans and the business! He’s held the Universal Championship hostage for more than a year now, and he only defends it a handful of times a year. He’s the opposite of a “fighting champion.”

On top of all that, he’s now undermining the authority of the Raw General Manager, Kurt “Damn True” Angle. It’s clear that Kurt Angle needs to find a way to take the title from Brock Lesnar if he wants the respect of his locker room. Here are a few ways he can do this.

crown a new number one contender

Right now, Kurt’s having a bit of trouble actually determining who the next contender will be, but I trust this situation will work itself out. These things usually fix themselves. At the time of writing, both Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns want to face Brock Lesnar, and no doubt many other superstars want to fight him as well.

Obviously, Angle is going to want to put all of his worthy competitors in one match and have them duke it out so someone can “earn” the right to face the Beast. I think he needs to stop doing that, because Roman Reigns will probably win, only to choke against Lesnar like he always does. Should Kurt trust the guy who lost to Brock Lesnar in three straight matches? I don’t think so.

I think that if Angle really wants the Universal Championship to return to Raw, he needs to go with a curveball. Perhaps someone who’s never faced Brock before. They might lose, but they also might win. Lesnar has never faced Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, Finn Balor, Baron Corbin, and No Way Jose before. Maybe one of them could be the one to beat him.

Or Kurt could go with the guy who already has a victory over Lesnar: Seth Rollins. Rollins has had a string of great matches, and he could ride that momentum and defeat Lesnar.

If Kurt wants the Universal title on Raw, he needs someone who’s not Roman Reigns to challenge Brock.

have an interim championship

I think they do this in boxing and other combat sports. Basically, the interim champion is the champion when the real champion isn’t around. By the time the real champion comes around, they fight, and whoever wins will be the undisputed champion. It sounds complicated, but it really is.

If Kurt wants a full-time champion on Monday nights, he can have some top stars beat each other up to become the interim Universal Champion. Say Finn Balor becomes the interim Champion. He is now the de facto number one contender for when Lesnar inevitably comes out of whatever cave he lives in. In the meantime, Balor can also defend his interim championship, like he would the real championship. Should someone beat him, they become the new interim champion and the new number one contender. Whoever is interim champion when Brock returns fights him to determine the undisputed Universal champion..

Unfortunately this could be confusing for some people (especially the kids and the older people) and it only really works if Brock Lesnar is not around, but given that there are contract disputes about his next title defense and we don’t even know when that will be, this could be a long-term solution worth looking at.

make Brock Lesnar fight everyone

Theoretically, Brock Lesnar has a 50% chance of winning in a one-on-one match. Make it a triple threat, and his chances decrease to 33%. Fatal four way lowers this even more to 25%, and so on and so forth. If Kurt Angle really wants to take the title from Brock Lesnar, then why not make Lesnar fight everyone?

A quick perusal of Raw’s roster reveals that there are 35 uninjured men who could all theoretically face Lesnar for the title. If Brock were to defend in a 36-man match, that reduces his odds to a little under 3%. That means there is a 97% chance that someone other than Lesnar walks away as Universal Champion.

Unfortunately, there are downsides to this as well. What if, somehow, against the will of god himself, Konnor (of the Ascension) pins Heath Slater in the middle of the ring and becomes the new Universal Champion? Then the title would become even more of a joke. Is this a risk Kurt is willing to take? I don’t know.

Fight Brock Lesnar himself

Since his return back in 2017, Kurt Angle has been pretty much undefeated. He picked up wins at TLC and Survivor Series before defeating Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at Wrestlemania (this stat has actually been fudged just a wee bit; Angle technically lost at the Greatest Royal Rumble, but that doesn’t really count since it’s been all but forgotten). He is on a roll.

He and Lesnar used to face each other fifteen years ago. They had a vicious feud over the WWE Championship, and Brock Lesnar won after doing a shooting star headbutt at Wrestlemania. But since Kurt’s been picking up wins left and right, why not make himself the number one contender?

He’s beaten Brock a couple of times in the past, so he has a greater chance than most of beating the Beast for the Universal Championship. And deep down, Brock probably respects Angle. So that’s that.

If Kurt wins, he could vacate the title and have some tournament for it, or he could hold it and never book any title defenses for himself so he can beat Bruno Sammartino’s record. But if that’s what it takes to beat Lesnar, then so be it.