Angle has never carried a match in his entire life. Period. He might have controlled a match because he was the heel, but he has never carried a match in his entire life. Chris Benoit had a great match with TYSON TOMKO. A-TRAIN had a good series with Benoit. Those two are both worse-than-average workers and Benoit did all he could to make those matches better than they had any right to be. In fact, go back and watch these three matches:
Angle/Big Show-The 2002 Armageddon title switch, right before Angle/Benoit happened at RR.
Eddie/Big Show-The match that is now starting to get a lot of praise.
You had the Angle match having a lot of big and impressive spots, but then in the Eddie match, you have a match that wasn't really flashy, but told a better story. Oh, it had the spots, but Eddy was so great at working to his opponents strengths that he didn't have to be flashy. He made Show look like what he's supposed to be, a monster who didn't want to lose.
He gets undue praise. He gets praise for doing a lot of things wrong in the ring. Doesn't sell, he doesn't use logic at all (if the ankle hold is the finisher, why use it a bajillion times in the context of a match?), and he can't hold a match together. How many times have you seen him take a big move, see his opponent go up top, and then, without selling the damage, simply run up and give him the suplex?
"Does this make logic?"-Konann
You proved the opposite of the point you're trying to prove with your first statement. When Angle is in there with a worker who can do things in the ring better than he can, in the selling, logic, and composition department, the match is better. It's never because of Angle. In nearly all the cases when it comes to Angle against a better worker, Angle is along for the ride. The "WWE Style" argument is a stupid one to make FOR Angle, let alone against Mysterio or Benoit. As far as Benoit and Rey go, in their first 7 years of professional wrestling, Angle has NEVER SNIFFED THEIR JOCKS in the "good match" department. But you've probably never seen matches outside of the Rey/Benoit DVDs that were non-US, huh? I'll tell you one thing: Sasuke/Benoit is probably not even in the top 50 matches ever, but it smokes the best Angle match ever. Benoit comes from the school where promos don't matter. He never had to cut a promo in Japan or in Mexico. He simply had to go out and wrestle. Granted, he's not the best promo man ever, but Angle isn't either. When he's cutting solo promos, I can't see them being good. When he's with a better promo guy (watch the Austin exchanges), he can be good. And Benoit's post-WM performances lately have been some of the best things I've seen recently. Angle should fuckin watch how Benoit sold his beatdowns and how he sold his injured shoulder.
The problem with the analysis of that match is that simply because RVD didn't sell the shoulder, you're saying the match is a waste. That's how Benoit's offense was. Angle works towards the Ankle Lock with the Ankle Lock. Benoit used about every other move OUTSIDE of the Crippler Crossface to work to the Crippler Crossface. Just because a guy loses the match doesn't make the psychology worse than it actually was.
So I guess that Toshiaki Kawada guy sucked, huh?
On Flair: He resorted to cheating when his ACTUAL GAMEPLAN (read: Work the leg towards the Figure-Four) didn't work. It's a last resort. Just like Angle's grapevine of the leg. That's about the ONLY smart thing he's done with the Ankle Lock. Although, for that to actually be bought as legit, he should really go straight to it if the Angle Lock doesn't work. The Figure-Four and the Ankle Lock have won both men matches. That's why they use them. Using them over and over again accomplishes NOTHING.
That's not character progression. Working the midsection over and then going to the Ankle Lock instead of the logical progression (The Angle Slam), is called REGRESSION.
By the way, you're saying that Angle should never sell a single wrestling move because he won a gold medal with a broken neck. That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Ric Flair broke his back, yet for 30 years he sold pretty well. Austin broke his neck, but he still came back to sell pretty damn well in his matches.
Your points about Angle being a good promo guy are once again disproven with your backing up of the claim. He's not a good solo promo guy. He always needs to be with somebody else, and when he's with somebody else, he's a good straight man.
Benoit had a better run as champ than Angle did. Go back and tell me that Angle's matches as champ were anywhere as good as Benoit's matches were, when he got a good match out of Kane and led Randy Orton to his best match ever, let alone make the stale 3-way match that WWE just LOVES using seem good. And Benoit/Angle from RR 03, the Angle supporters #1 go-to match, is not that good. When making the "Benoit isn't as good as Angle because he doesn't cut a good promo" argument, realize that Benoit never got over because he was a good promo like Austin and Rocky did. He got over because he wrestled. Angle should have been like Benoit: An Olympic Champion who came in here to wrestle, but instead, he got sucked into the "entertainment" instead of the "wrestling." He forgot about the wrestling, which is a true shame, because if he actually went out and tried to wrestle like Benoit does, he would have been over and he'd be mentioned in the same breath as a Benoit or a Guerrero when it comes to GREATNESS.
As far as Jericho goes, he'll put over big moves. Remember when he was feuding with Batista, and he got knocked out by his lariat? That wasn't even Batista's finisher. But because of how Jericho treated that move, he got the move over to the point that when Batista used it on other wrestlers, it was a bonafide finisher. Angle never sold a finisher correctly unless he lost the match.
