Kurt Angle famously won an Olympic Gold medal with a broken freaking neck at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, but it wasn’t to be the only time he broke his neck following an incident at WWE No Way Out 2003.
Kurt Angle suffered broken neck at the hands of Brock Lesnar
Back in 2003 WWE SmackDown was one of the hottest shows on tv, with the likes of Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar turning in must-watch performances every week as the Ruthless Aggression era took hold.
On the Road To Wrestlemania that year, Angle teamed with Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin (collectively known as Team Angle) at No Way Out 2003 to face the duo of Brock Lesnar and Chris Benoit in a handicap match. Angle and Lesnar were on a collision course for Wrestlemania 19, but that main event match would be put in doubt when Angle once again suffered a broken neck during the losing effort at No Way out. Speaking recently on The Kurt Angle Podcast, the WWE Hall Of Famer revealed that he cracked 4 vertebrae during the hard hitting bout:
Yeah and unfortunately in this match I broke my neck. Brock had, you know, did you see earlier in the match, or earlier in the show where I had Brock in a chokehold and he got me on his back. Well, he did that in the pay-per-view, and he ran across the ring and he went to turn his back so I hit the turnbuckle. But we didn’t make it all the way around. I hit my neck whiplashed, my neck snapped, and I cracked 4 vertebrae in my neck. And I ended up [with a broken neck].
I was supposed to win at WrestleMania Goddammit, sorry. But because I broke my neck I had to give up the title because I was going to have surgery and I would be off for a little bit.
Angle underwent neck surgery to repair nerve and spinal damage, calcium buildup, bone spurs, and intervertebral disc problems just days later. Angle opted for an unconventional surgery that would reduce his rehabilitation time from one year to three months. Angle would soon thereafter defeat Brock Lesnar and The Big Show at Vengeance 2003 to claim his fourth WWE Championship.