Kurt Angle‘s Iron Man match against Brock Lesnar has an eye-opening backstory.
On the September 18, 2003, episode of WWE SmackDown, Kurt Angle battled Brock Lesnar in an Iron Man Match. The bout is widely considered to be one of the best TV matches in WWE history. But behind the scenes, Angle was in rough shape.
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Angle discussed his struggles with substance abuse.
“I was introduced to painkillers,” Kurt Angle said. “When I started taking them, I really liked it. It masked the pain, I didn’t feel the pain, it kind of gave me an energetic feel. It didn’t make me feel nauseous, like it does for a lot of people. I start taking them. I was taking one every four to six hours, like I was told. But after a while, you build a tolerance and one doesn’t work anymore. You gotta take two, then two became four. This was extra-strength Vicodin. OxyContin is a lot more powerful than Vicodin. But I was taking 65 extra-strength Vicodin a day. That’s how out it control I can. I was hiding it from the company. I was in serious trouble.
“It kept me from going through withdrawals, but there were times where I passed out. The company knew, some of my friends knew. I’ll give you an example. There was one point, this was how bad it got.”
Kurt Angle Took 20 Vicodin The Day Before He Faced Brock Lesnar
Kurt Angle then recalled the time he took an excessive amount of extra-strength Vicodin the day before he faced Lesnar anyway.
“It was the night before I was gonna have the biggest match of my career with Brock Lesnar the next day. It was an Iron Man match on SmackDown. My brother calls me and says, ‘Hey, your sister just died of a heroin overdose.’ It crushed me. I was crying, I was in such pain, thinking about my sister, who was only 40 years old dying from a heroin overdose.
“The thing is, I wasn’t able to talk to her because I told her eight months prior if she doesn’t get clean, I’m not gonna talk to you. So I didn’t talk to her for eight months, and then this happens. So here I am, I’m in the hotel room. I look at my pills, and I said, ‘F-ck it.’ I took 20 of them, threw them in my mouth, chewed them up and swallowed them.”
Kurt Angle Says He Delivered One Of His Best Performances
Kurt Angle then detailed how he didn’t wake up until the following afternoon, but he went on to face Lesnar anyway.
“I didn’t wake up until 5 o’clock in the afternoon the next day, and I had the biggest match of my career [that night]. We had to be there at one, but I didn’t get there until 5:30. I ended up doing it. WWE was trying to call me. They were like, they wanted to tell me, ‘Hey, you can go home, plan the funeral for your sister, you don’t have to do this match.’ I kept thinking, I know my sister would want me to.
“I knew that I wouldn’t have to feel that pain of losing my sister, at least for that hour. So I went ahead and did it. It was actually one of my best performances of my career, which is kind of crazy. But that was a really rough time. The painkillers are the one thing that I do regret I did.”
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