The next week on SmackDown!, Angle defeated Lesnar to retain the WWE Championship. On the March 6 episode of SmackDown!, Lesnar defeated Paul Heyman in a steel cage match to earn a championship match against Angle the next week. During that pay-per-view, Edge was supposed to team up with Lesnar & Benoit to wrestle Team Angle in the scheduled Six Man Tag team match but Edge was attacked backstage and it was announced he could not participate in the match. The following month at No Way Out, Lesnar and Benoit defeated Team Angle (Kurt Angle, Shelton Benjamin, and Charlie Haas) in a handicap match. After several weeks of vignettes, Angle made his televised WWF in-ring debut on November 14 at Survivor Series at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, defeating Shawn Stasiak.Īt the Royal Rumble in January, Angle defeated Chris Benoit to retain the WWE Championship, and Lesnar won the Royal Rumble match to become number one contender to the WWE Championship at WrestleMania when he last eliminated The Undertaker. He then lost the championship to Steve Bradley on August 7. He also continued to wrestle for PPW and on July 24 he won the PPW Championship. In the following months, he wrestled on house shows and in other dark matches in preparation for his televised debut. His first WWF match was a dark match victory over Brian Christopher on April 11.

Angle instead blew his nose on Singh's flag and fought him off. This angle involved Singh paying him money to blow his nose on the American flag.

Angle's first appearance on WWE television was on the Maepisode of Sunday Night Heat, where he took part in an angle with Tiger Ali Singh.

Wrestlemania 22 kurt angle