10 Greatest Rivalries in The History of WWE SmackDown

#1 Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle

Unexpected amazing feud

The Brock Lesnar/Kurt Angle rivalry started off shortly after Brock lost the WWE Championship to the Big Show at Survivor Series 2002. Kurt Angle would be next to challenge Show the title at the next pay-per-view, Armageddon. Kurt enlisted Lesnar to help him out, which he did.

Kurt then promised Brock a future WWE Championship match as a thank you. However, later on that same show where Kurt made this promise, he also announced Paul Heyman as his manager, and thus quickly turning heel again, with no Championship match for Brock. The Beast would win the 2003 Royal Rumble to get his title match at WrestleMania XIX. They would have a very good build-up to the match, which included Kurt generally avoiding attacks by Lesnar, and outsmarting him in their first singles match a few weeks prior to Mania, where Kurt used his brother Eric as a distraction to defeat Lesnar.

In an excellent WrestleMania main event, Brock would finally defeat Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship. Kurt would take 3 months off and return a babyface, forming a new friendship with WWE Champion Brock Lesnar. After a few weeks of friendly and often fun competition and team-ups, Kurt pinned Brock in an excellent Triple Threat at Vengeance. Brock's frustration over losing the WWE Championship would eventually lead to he turning heel on Angle and forming an alliance with Vince McMahon.

This lead to another cracking match, at SummerSlam, where Kurt retained the Championship over Brock. The following month, Brock defeated Kurt to win the WWE Championship back in probably SmackDown's greatest ever at, a 60 minute Iron Man on the September 18 edition of the show. The feud ended here, for the most part.