Kurt Angle

[Grimmas]

I watched the Benoit Rumble match earlier this year, and still loved the hell out of it.

Awesome.

 

I watched that when I ranked the Royal Rumble matches and thought it was complete and utter shit. Half of the match was German Suplexes and German Suplex reversals.

 

I think you can point to Angle's series with Benoit as the point where he started to really become Kurt Angle and really become a wrestler I don't want to watch. Prior to that I am pretty high on him, though.

 

I gave up on him after 2004, so maybe there are some performances out there that could sway me.

[Matt D]

Yeah, I was going to watch Angle vs Henry but ended up watching this insanely fun Santo trios match from 94 instead. I'll get to it.

[Jimmy Redman]

The Henry Rumble match is not good. It's not as bad as the 'WORST PPV MAIN EVENT EVER!!" hysteria from Meltzer when it happened. But it's also not a hidden gem Henry match or anything. It starts off OK and then quickly dies, and it never had the crowd at all. Their Judgment Day match is better, although I don't really like Angle as a Henry opponent at all.

 

Whoever said the Edge series is disappointing is spot on. There's nothing wrong with them, per se, but they're just good midcard matches. There's nothing great about them so the talk about it being this amazing feud and the ****1/2 ratings that Meltzer was throwing out look completely ridiculous.

 

The Benoit Rumble match drives me up the wall. I last watched it when we had that big Smackdown Six discussion many months ago.

 

Actually I looked at all the Angle/Benoit matches from that time period:

 

 

 

I just watched Unforgiven and yeah, the opening is really good. The first half of this match is probably the best thing they've managed to do in the ring as opponents.

Unforgiven for me fell off from a really strong opening into a...good second half. There was a point where they kind of went "BAM, let's start trading triple Germans!" (as there always seems to be in these matches) and it kind of took me down a little. There was also a point where Angle took the flipping German on his head (for the first time? one of the first times anyway sure) and died...and then was sprinting up the ropes to do his "surprise" top rope throw literally seconds later, which is the kind of thing that takes me out of a match. There are times when I don't mind that spot where it's clear that he's either had ample time to recover from whatever move it was, or he's playing possum until they get up there. Here where he blows off a death move far too quickly to pop up and do it, no thanks.

The second half was fine, again, but you talk about escalation and to me the way they escalate in matches...there's a veneer of artificiality to it. It's too simple, too...neat and tidy. It's like they have a checklist of The States of Escalation that they tick off as they go along:

- matwork
- start punching/brawling
- BAM German suplexes!
- diving headbutt/top rope leap/Angle Slam
- Crossface/Ankle Lock trading
- finish

It was just too organised, like their moves were ordered in a line from smallest to biggest. Matwork leads to clotheslines leads to Germans leads to headbutt/Angle Slam leads to submission finishers. I mean I'm not really leaving any moves or stretches of time out of this description, once you reach the BAM Germans threshold that's all there was, they just went from A to B to C in a line. If you look at a really good match that has a good sense of escalation about it, they're not so linear. Of course generally they make the same progression from opening stuff to bigger moves to finishers, but it's fleshed out a lot more, there are transitions. And when they get it right, they can hit a big move, then follow it up with something simple like a punch or chop or clothesline or rollup or whatever, and still make it feel like an escalation, through selling exhaustion, struggle and the impact of the move.

Angle just seems incapable of that. He hits a move and thinks the only way to top it and escalate the match is to hit a BIGGER one. Thats why you get those bad Angle matches with 37 finishers, because he uses a finisher mid-match for a pop, and then the only way he thinks he can go is up, so he hits 36 more.

The escalation is artificial, is what I'm saying. They're not telling the story of a match escalating through their body language or selling or anything else. They're telling it by hitting bigger moves now, so it MUST have escalated, right? I just find it a little manufactured, and the later Angle "TOP THIS" finisher-fests are just an extension of that.

I'm sure I'm coming off as more down on the match itself than I was. I liked it, and liked it more than the last time I watched it. I think last time I didn't really like the finish with the ropes for some reason, but seeing it again I think it was pretty clever and very well done, aside from Angle's shoulders visibly not being down for the pin. I liked the match on the whole, particularly the opening matwork, I just don't think it was a particularly great match. I agree the psychology of one-upmanship works, but I also think the psychology of the way they built the match was lacking. It's just not what I want out of a match.

I am going to end up watching the Rumble match soon as well. There are also TV matches from October, December and February, so I may just watch them all to see the match-to-match stuff.

 

 

 

So anyway back to the topic, I've been watching the rest of the Angle-Benoit series. 24th October was pretty much a sprint version of their match. The opening rolling around lasted maybe a minute, the "heat" lasted maybe two, and then they went into the finishing stretch. I doubt the whole thing went 10 minutes, but of course they still found the time to hit a million Germans, including the flipping one. They worked Angle's top rope leap into the match in a better way here, since Angle ate the flipping German and then stayed down for Benoit's headbutt to create a solid nearfall, and then later on Benoit merely cuts him off with a forearm smash and tries to go up again. but Angle recovers and runs up. They also work in the foot-on-the-ropes bit from Unforgiven into this too, which was cool.

 

19th December was worked more like a traditional WWE match, starting off with headlocks and what have you and working a longer, more typical heat section. Angle had just turned heel(er) so at least it made sense for him to get heat on Benoit. I liked how Benoit rolled out of the Angle Slam to start his comeback, but there was a ridiculous German suplex exchange in this that I'm not sure whether I liked or hated, with Benoit hitting nine unanswered Germans, with two interruptions. At least Angle didn't pop up from them.

 

Now, the Rumble. It's still worth noting that whatever picture you have in your mind of what the first 5 minutes of a long Angle/Benoit match would look like...this isn't it. Punch, stomp, chop, punch, stomp. I'm not even saying that is a bad thing, but it is certainly a thing. This isn't the kind of thing I say often, but if you put the first half of Unforgiven onto the second half of the Rumble, you'd have a hell of a match.

 

The other thing I want to say about the beginning is that there is zero drama concerning the Sharpshooter. Benoit tried to put it on once, Angle made the ropes, not acting any more concerned than if it was any other mat wrestling move (whoever claimed that he was showing fear of it is crazy), then a minute or so later, Benoit puts the Sharpshooter on, Angle struggles and makes it to the ropes. The end. It meant nothing to the match and it wasn't compelling or even drawn out much for drama. It just...happened.

 

I said there was no heat in my last review, and what I meant was that even if Angle was technically on offense for a certain amount of time without much reprieve, that doesn't necessarily make it feel like an actual heat segment. Seeing it now, it actually went on a bit longer than I remembered, but it was still just "Angle lays in a body scissors for a few minutes and does nothing" before Benoit makes his comeback (from what?) and to me that isn't really a heat segment. It came off more like a couple of restholds.

 

Everything after that, starting with Benoit's comeback, was pretty cool though. Like I said before, the second half of the match is at least exciting and world's better than the beginning. I know when I type this aloud I'm going to read how ridiculous it sounds, but there's some small comfort in seeing German suplex exchanges where the guys reverse after eating one suplex, instead of taking two or three and then somehow having the strength to reverse and hit two or three of their own. At least with just one you can sort of buy into the idea of "Ouch that hurt, I better reverse him NOW to make sure I don't eat any more of those."

 

I still find arguments that go like "but at the time, we'd never seen the crossface reversed into the Ankle Lock and back again before!" to be utterly ridiculous given the last four months of Smackdown and the last three singles matches they had. But I understand that it was exciting. Benoit hitting the huge headbutt was a nice moment, but was also not milked nearly as much as I was expecting. Was this the first time Angle had used the grapevine finish? Because I did like that in a "I have to come up with something completely new to put away this unprecedented threat" way, and also in a logic sense because Benoit kept trying to kick his way out of the Ankle Lock.

 

I didn't dislike the Rumble as much as I did last time. I think that's the way it goes with a controversial match, at least for me. Watch it one time, see the flaws. Watch it the next time with negative thoughts about it, get pleasantly surprised by the positives. Watch it again with positive thoughts, and then notice all of those flaws again. And so on. I still don't think it's all that great a match, really. The first half meanders and isn't all that compelling. The second half is fun in an Angle, overkill way, which I can enjoy to a certain extent but also isn't particularly my kind of wrestling. Still don't see the argument for it being a psychological masterpiece. In the end the point I would like to make is that there are PLENTY of great SD Six era matches that hold up very well, even if I don't think Angle/Benoit is one of them.

[W2BTD]

 

There's nothing great about them so the talk about it being this amazing feud and the ****1/2 ratings that Meltzer was throwing out look completely ridiculous.

 

Dave Meltzer loves Edge, and overrates everything he's ever done. It's just one of those things. He really likes the guy. We all have guys like that who we like better than most other people. His is Edge.

[NintendoLogic]

For what it's worth, the Undertaker match at NWO 2006 created the template for the Undertaker Wrestlemania Epic.

[Jimmy Redman]

It's not only him though, a lot of people cite the Angle/Edge matches as some great series or hidden classics and give out similar ratings. And I don't see it. They're just...good matches.

[JerryvonKramer]

Half of the match was German Suplexes and German Suplex reversals.

Sounds pretty good to me.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Kurt Angle as the happy go lucky comedy character was awesome. Kurt Angle The Wrestling Machine (who more aptly be named Spot Monkey) is so lame.

 

I have no problem with a quick pace or go, go, go. Wrestling does not have to be wrestled at a crawl for me to be entertained, but the spots have to have consequence and need to be connected. I don't know how many times I have seen Kurt Angle take somebody's offense and then just get up break up a lock up and throw his mediocre punches and then hit his suplexes. It is no different than when I playing my brother in SD! Here Comes The Pain and I happen to hit Square more times then he hits Circle. That is not wrestling. Angle has decided he is tired of taking offense and now wants to do his. Spots are meaningless. So why I should I invest them? The transitions are horrendous. There is no defense for the transitions that happen in a Kurt Angle match.

 

 

The last time I watched Angle was when I was watching a ton of AJ Style. I am a huge AJ Styles mark. I think he is really an incredible wrestler. The feud over Karen was great and violent. The matches were totally disconnected from the storyline. Neither was pissed at each other. AJ was trying to work a "prove yourself to the vet" match and Angle was doing fuck knows what. Even the commentators where stupefied because they were hyping this bloody brawl because these guys hate each other and instead it was just spots. That is Kurt Angle. If you do not impose your will on him, the match will suck. He can be carried to a great match because he has all the athletic tools, but he has the worst wrestling IQ ever.

 

He has been a part of enough good to great stuff that I will consider him, but I really feel that is all his opponent's doing. If Kurt Angle had it his way, he would just keep wrestling like a video game.

[broccoman]

Angle may be a spot monkey, but he's one of the more entertaining ones out there. Wouldn't make my list though.

[pol]

Could someone list a couple of Kurt Angle matches that are well-regarded by Meltzer/the wider smart fan community that they'd consider the most egregious examples of his flaws? I pretty much checked out of WWE after 2003 or so and prior to that I was very much in thrall to the standard smark consensus.

[pol]

I watched the Benoit Rumble match. They worked a 5 minute TV sprint for 20 minutes. For a match of that length I expect some sense of escalation and the feeling that we've come on a journey since the opening bell, and there was just none of that here. There's no big match feel, it doesn't feel like anything of consequence is happening and all the announcer's proclamations about what a great match we're seeing come off as really weird to me.

 

I'm a little worried that I'm being unfair to the match by going into it looking for negatives since the word on it here is so bad, but I'm fairly sure that even if I'd gone in expecting a great match I wouldn't have seen it as better than *** or so. The standing ovation for Benoit at the end comes off as very strange given the almost complete lack of heat for the majority of the match.

 

One positive of Angle and of the go-go-go style in general is that while it can never reach the emotional highs wrestling is capable of, on the flipside the matches pack enough action in that they are rarely boring - I'd be surprised to find an Angle match I considered worse than **, because so long as you're actually doing stuff I'm always going to be moderately entertained. I'd be interested to hear how others feel about that.

[Jimmy Redman]

Could someone list a couple of Kurt Angle matches that are well-regarded by Meltzer/the wider smart fan community that they'd consider the most egregious examples of his flaws? I pretty much checked out of WWE after 2003 or so and prior to that I was very much in thrall to the standard smark consensus.

I think the most obvious example would be Angle vs Jeff Hatdy at TNA Victory Road 2010.

[Grimmas]

I watched the Benoit Rumble match. They worked a 5 minute TV sprint for 20 minutes. For a match of that length I expect some sense of escalation and the feeling that we've come on a journey since the opening bell, and there was just none of that here. There's no big match feel, it doesn't feel like anything of consequence is happening and all the announcer's proclamations about what a great match we're seeing come off as really weird to me.

 

I'm a little worried that I'm being unfair to the match by going into it looking for negatives since the word on it here is so bad, but I'm fairly sure that even if I'd gone in expecting a great match I wouldn't have seen it as better than *** or so. The standing ovation for Benoit at the end comes off as very strange given the almost complete lack of heat for the majority of the match.

 

 

In January I did a list of the best 25 matches in the history of the Royal Rumble. I left this match off the list.

 

The result was getting lambasted all over the internet for that list, because I left off that match.

[Matt D]

I think I'm not going to revisit it. I was at Royal Rumble 2003. I gave Benoit the standing ovation. At the time, I felt very lucky that I got to see it live. I'm pretty sure I'd despise the thing now. I'll just let that one lay.

 

I still need to watch those Angle vs Henry matches though. I'm actually pretty interested in watching Angle vs WRESTLERS I LIKE AND WILL PROBABLY MAKE MY LIST as well as RVD vs WRESTLERS I LIKE AND WILL PROBABLY MAKE MY LIST just to see how different wrestlers deal with the challenge of them.

[GOTNW]

Angle is someone I am predisposed to liking. He works fast paced, does a bunch of suplexes and has shown glimpses of quality matwork. I really like his high-end stuff. I am insanely high on his matches vs Austin at SS01 and Undertaker at NWO06. He never bores me in a way that my least favourite wrestlers like Randy Orton do. But I don't get the case for him. There is very little high-end Angle stuff. Other than the matches I mentioned there's a few overrated matches that were only ever hyped because of low mainstream wrestling standards at the time (vs Benoit at the Rumble and vs HBK at Mania), his TNA stuff which ranges from good (if you enjoy the style-which I do) to terrible (as in-I enjoy your style but you are terrible at pro wrestling fuck dude sell, show emotion, do something please just stop doing finishers and cage moonsaults k?). His peak was what, 2001-2003? And his flaws have been overly documented so pointing them out would be redundant however something I haven't seen him get criticized for and that bothers me a lot is his tendendcy to do counter spots which make no sense at all in the context of the match just because they looked cool the first time he did them. I find him entertaining as a reckless spot machine but he's not a better professional wrestler than say, Masao Inoue.

[BillThompson]

The standing ovation for Benoit at the end comes off as very strange given the almost complete lack of heat for the majority of the match.

 

 

 

I don't think there was any lack of heat for the match. In the beginning the crowd was dead, which is understandable coming off of Steiner/Triple H. But, the long Angle and Benoit go the more the crowd gets into the match until by the end they've been taken from a deflated and destroyed crowd into one that is happy as pie to be watching wrestling again. A lot of that comes from the sense of escalation, which you don't think the match has, but I think is probably the number one factor in it being a great match.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

This is what I said about Benoit/Angle when I did my big rumble watch a couple of months back:

 

Not as ‘workrate-y’ as I was expecting, although there’s no real story being told with the work other than two guys working as equals doing moves to each other. I appreciate how hard they were laying some of their shots in, and I thought this built pretty nicely with them doing teases to their signature moves. Some nice nearfalls too. I really hate all the submission reversals though. It just became overkill. Liked how it led to the heel hook ankle lock though (I think the debut of that) as the final death move.

[Lee Casebolt]

My biggest problem with Angle is self-inflicted. I keep wanting him to be a Lou Thesz-style matworker, and aside from the Benoit match and the Samoa Joe feud, he's never been that guy. Instead he's Jeff Hardy.

[BillThompson]

The more I watch of Angle's 2000+ run (I'm at the end of 2001 presently) the more he moves up my rankings. I'll port over the reviews from my blog at some point, and I'll add in some thoughts on matches that didn't make the blog, but I really believe more than ever that he was a great storyteller who doesn't get any credit for that aspect of his skillset.

[Jimmy Redman]

I don't mind Angle in 2001 from my vague memories. I love the Austin matches, and Angle actually does really well as the sympathetic babyface fighting and bleeding buckets and winning for the WWF and America. He was a good foil for heel Austin at the time. The Shane match I think definitely has it's flaws, but it also has it's charms and despite the problems I had I kind of liked it overall. I haven't seen the Benoit cage match in a while, but I remember not thinking much of it the last time I did.

 

2000 I am less high on. I remember watching a bunch of early Angle one time and they were mainly meh matches that did little for me. The Rock match (No Mercy 00) I found highly disappointing, for example. I think the only match of his from 2000 I liked was the Summerslam three-way, and Angle was unconscious for most of that match.

 

What else is there worth watching from this period?

[ohtani's jacket]

I love Angle. I don't know if it's a guilty pleasure or I legitimately think he's good, but I dig him a lot. He's a machine and his intensity is off the charts. There's no way I can dislike an excessively fired up jock. I do wonder if my love for him goes back to the countless hours I spent playing RAW vs. Smackdown story mode. I remember really liking the Benoit/Angle Rumble match as a result.

[Matt D]

The more I watch of Angle's 2000+ run (I'm at the end of 2001 presently) the more he moves up my rankings. I'll port over the reviews from my blog at some point, and I'll add in some thoughts on matches that didn't make the blog, but I really believe more than ever that he was a great storyteller who doesn't get any credit for that aspect of his skillset.

 

Bill,

 

I will watch TWO (2) matches that highlight this aspect that you want me to watch, sometime in the next month. Name them.

[BillThompson]

I would highly suggest the Rock match from No Way Out '01 and the Austin match from Unforgiven '01. Both are high chapter marks in the "Angle is becoming a pro wrestler as opposed to an amateur wrestler" narrative that runs through just about every one of his matches in 2001. Funny thing is Angle's not the best performer in either match but they are great examples of Angle's willingness to give as a performer and to allow his opponent to shine for the sake of the story.

[Mr. Lacelle]

I really dug his Wrestlemania 17 match against Benoit. It reminded me of the Williams/Gordy-Steiners match from Clash 19 in that it weaved amateur style seamlessly with the pro style.

[JerryvonKramer]

Here is a genuine question that I'd love someone to explain for me. Kurt Angle has been criticised for being "go go go", but how is that different from the All Japan style which is worked at a fast pace with lots of bombs and offense in general?

 

What I'd love is for someone to break down for me what each of the four pillars has as a worker over Angle WITHOUT leaning on Great Matches. That is: what do each of them do WITHIN matches that puts them over a guy like Angle?

 

This might appear rudimentary to a lot of people, but I think a lot of others would be interested to see it fleshed out.