[2000-09-11-WWF-Raw] Kurt Angle vs Test & Albert (Handicap)

[soup23]

Good Angle promo weaving in the Olympics, dedicating the match to Stephanie and getting a potshot in at the Arizona Diamondbacks. The match setup here is fun as Angle wants to prove he can do what HHH did last week better. HHH is looking on backstage and laughing at the early shit kicking Angle takes from T&A. When Angle gets dumped on the outside, Trish puts the boots to him. This brings out Stephanie to take out Trish. Stephanie is then encountered by T&A and HHH has to run out and make the save. Angle checks on Stephanie and HHH explodes to big face pops. Stephanie gets in the middle of them and gets shoved away. Referees get punched away. HHH goes for a pedigree but Steph grabs a waistlock. HHH no knowing it was her back elbows her. Angle then blasts HHH right into Stephanie as well. Steph recovers on the apron but Angle gets sent into her on the apron and she takes a bad looking bump. HHH takes her to the back but Kurt cheapshots him. Backstage, Foley makes the match for Unforgiven with himself as the special referee. This angle is still building and great. I don’t think it has lost steam at all since SummerSlam. ½*

 

[AstroBoy]

Angle is fun bouncing around and generally making Test and Albert look pretty good against him. Test's full nelson chokeslam was nice, pretty much everything else he did not so nice. One thing about Angle is that he takes a hell of a bump over the top to the outside. It always looks like he just dies tumbling out to the floor. Angle gets very little offense and this is about the post-match where the story escalates and Stephanie gets physically battered by accident.

 

3/4*

[GSR]

Not only would Kurt Angle like to dedicate this match to all the Olympic athletes who are going for Gold later this month, but also to his good friend Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley.  After HHH faced T&A last week, JR explains that Angle’s motivation for taking this handicap match is to show that he can do whatever Triple H can do, only that he can do it better.  Release German suplex on Albert, but as Kurt celebrates, Test takes his head off with a boot to the face.  Yet again HHH is shown watching on from his dressing room and while he finds the beating he is taking funny, Stephanie not so much.  Great looking double press slam as they drop Kurt chest first to the mat.  Full nelson slam and there is some serious high impact offense on display from T&A that Angle is bumping around for.  After Test clotheslines Kurt over the top rope to the outside, we again cut to HHH laughing at what he’s seeing, but when he tells Stephane to “look at this”, she’s gone, out of there.  Trish Stratus puts the boots to Angle on the ringside floor which brings out Stephanie who takes care of her.  Test grabs Steph, but she makes the mistake of ducking into the ring to escape, ending up sandwiched between both members of T&A.  As her former fiancé is about to powerbomb her, Triple H sprints out to make the save.  ‘The Game’ and Angle work together to clear the ring, but while HHH continues to let them have it, Kurt is checking on his wife.  Hunter turns around, catching him doing so and has that face of thunder again.  Stephanie gets between them, but Triple H shoves her to the mat, incensed at what he just witnessed.  As the two trade blows, a couple of referees try to separate them to no avail.  HHH is getting the better of things and is about to give Angle the ‘pedigree’ when Steph gets behind him to pull him off.  Thinking that it’s another one of the officials, he elbows her in the head.  ‘The Game’ can’t believe what he’s done when he realises, although it’s not over for Stephanie who gets bumped a further time, taking a spill off the apron to the floor.  Eventually HHH carries her off to the back but is cheapshotted by Kurt.  Surprisingly Angle then doesn’t pick Steph up and carry her to the back himself, just leaving her there.

Backstage Triple H is tending to his wife when Commissioner Foley enters the room and tells him that this has gotten out of hand, he is therefore booking a match between them at Unforgiven with himself as the special guest referee.