Kurt Angle names Iron Man Match with Brock Lesnar as the toughest of his career

Kurt Angle organized a Q & A session with his fans on his Facebook page on Friday. In one of his questions, he was invited to reflect on his career at the WWE Hall of Fame.

At one point, Angle was asked, "What was your most difficult match physically or mentally?" Angle responded by writing: "The one-hour match against the Iron Man with Brock Lesnar … it was intense … just like Brock, not to mention my sister who died the night before. This match was between two world-clbad athletes 60 minutes in. Intense. "

Angle and the famous feud of SmackDown at Lesnar on the WWE Championship culminated in a 60-minute match in Iron Man on September 18, 2003 in Raleigh, NC. The match, considered by many as one of the best in the history of the blue mark, allowed Lesnar to take a fast lead and win a 5-4 win despite the delay of Angle and his trap in the Ankle Lock at the last minute. "The Incarnate Beast" managed to hold long enough not to tap before the end of the allotted time.

The Olympic gold medalist has played in three Iron Man games over the course of his career, but has never managed to win any. He fell to Chris Benoit on April 29, 2001 at Raw in a match for Iron Man (only the match against Ultimate Submission) 4-3 after the fight was forced to do overtime after the 30-minute mark. Fast forward to 2005 and Angle challenged Shawn Michaels in a rematch of their WrestleMania 21 Fight in a 30-minute Iron Man match during the Raw episode of October 3, 2005. This match resulted in a draw after the two men won two wins each.

Bret Hart was the only other man to appear in three WWE Iron Man matches: Bret Hart. His only defeat at this stipulation was the WrestleMania XII against Shawn Michaels.

Match conditions have not been in place for almost six years after John Cena defeated Randy Orton in a one-hour match for the WWE Championship at Bragging rights in October 2009. It finally reappeared in NXT to close the Bayley-Sasha Banks feud at NXT TakeOver: Respect in October 2015 and has only been used once a year on television.

The last Iron Man match took place at Extreme rules return in July between Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler on the intercontinental championship. The match ended controversially when the score was tied 4-4 and sent overtime by Raw's general manager, Kurt Angle, but Ziggler won with a distraction from Drew McIntyre 10 seconds later later.