Throughout out This Day in Wrestling History segments, we typically focus on the top promotion in the United States, but history is all encompassing, so today we’re going to look back at a title defense we don’t often hear about.
This Day in Wrestling History occurred on June 29, 2007 at Toukon Bom-Ba-Ye in Tokyo, Japan.
As is often the case, there was a few obstacles to overcome, mainly Brock Lesnar trying to move away from professional wrestling and into the MMA world.
For us, we clearly remember when Lesnar missed his moonsault and this was a way to help wash that clean for many.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDYGO6zy5TY
Making a deal
We want to give special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the excerpt.
“It wasn’t long before Simon Inoki called my lawyers and wanted to set up a big title match in Japan. I told my lawyers, ‘Here’s my price, give them the number and tell them to take it or leave it.’ They tried to counter so we didn’t have a deal.
“As the months rolled by, Simon kept calling, but he wouldn’t meet my price. Eventually, over a year later after I was well into training for my first MMA fight and had more or less put wrestling in my past (although the IWGP belt looked good hanging in my garage), my lawyers got another call from Simon. The Inokis had cut ties with New Japan and were starting a new promotion called IGF. They needed a main event for their first show and they wanted it to be Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle for the IWGP title. Now, they were willing to meet my price.
“I agreed to do it, but since Kurt was working for TNA, I made Simon confirm that both TNA and Kurt were committed to the match and let them know that it could not take place until after my first MMA fight. I enjoyed getting back in the ring with Kurt for one night and had no problem dropping the title to him. When I did that match, I was sure that I would never have to lace up a pair of wrestling boots again…with just one exception.
“In the back of my mind, I knew that when I became a big enough commodity doing something else in life, there would always be a big payday waiting for me when I decided to come back for one big event, one big night, one big match. But that was looking far into the future.” – Brock Lesnar, Deathclutch book
Differing thoughts
It’s reasonable that fans point to this when Lesnar pops into the WWE for a year long championship run ass a part timer.
It can be frustrating in many ways, but he’s always been one to give back to the business more times than not.
A perfect fact last year was coaching Drew McIntyre on what to do leading to their WrestleMania match. Yep, he comes in for the paydays, but he doesn’t go half speed and we respect him for that.
On another cool note, this win made Kurt Angle a double champion as he held the TNA (Impact Wrestling) and the IWGP titles.
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