Almost everyone loved Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit from the Royal Rumble 2003. At the time, it was mind blowing to see a match with that sort of finisher-counter wrestling on a major wrestling promotion. We'd seen major WWE matches with big finisher kickouts, such as the Rock vs Stone Cold, but nothing like Angle vs Benoit where the transitions between the finishers were as integral as the finishers themselves. It went on to be the template for the "WWE main event" style that still exists to this day. Kurt Angle would use that formula to develop his own style that became trademark for him: heavy counter wrestling and finisher kickouts. And while Kurt Angle remained mostly a popular and well regarded wrestler, there were certain parts of the internet that tired of this formula. Longtime residents of Wrestlingclique.com may remember this match was quite infamous at the time. I'd say it was one of the more divisive matches in the forum's history. For a long time, the subject of Kurt Angle had been the source of many debates (particularly in comparison to John Cena). And once this match happened, a lot of people used it to confirm their hatred of the Angle formula, while others maintained this was a match of the year candidate.
That's why I chose this match as the Match of the Week. It's been a long time since Kurt Angle was a regular wrestler on TV. Gone are the days when he'd have a match with Amazing Red on Impact and have him kick out of the Angle Slam. It's with this removal from context that I'd like to look back on Angle and to see if this match truly was as contentious as it should have been, or if this was a symptom of a long bubbling discrepancy across the forum.
This is the for a shot at the TNA World Championship, with the winner going to Bound For Glory for the title against either Mr Anderson or the Pope (wow, that is weird to think). If Kurt Angle loses, he's promised to retire.
Immediately what springs to mind is how little they let the match breathe. Taz and Tenay talk about Angle's strategy to try and ground Hardy, but that holds little weight when them almost immediately chuck that out the window in favour of throwing bombs.
I like both these wrestlers on the whole, but can fully acknowledge how flawed both are. There is absolutely no structure or story to this for the majority of the match. This is both men showing their worst tendencies and playing wrestling in their backyard with the finisher kickouts. The best way I can describe it is two guys that thought "hey, why do we need a beginning and middle when we can get to the finish"? Within 6 minutes, Jeff had hit two Twist of Fates and Angle had hit a top rope Belly to Belly and an Angle Slam. Within 10 minutes Hardy hit a Swanton from the top rope to the floor. Hilariously, Taz comments on how the fans weren't reacting to the finisher spam by saying that half the fans are going crazy and I don't think half understand what they just saw.
That's not to say that the pace is necessarily a bad thing - for example if the match is a sprint. Kurt Angle vs Rey Mysterio from Summerslam 2002 is a match which is a frantic sprint from start to finish with all sorts of big moves and creative counters. What separates this is that nothing is as intricate as Rey vs Angle. Those two had moves that flowed into each other perfectly. This match is just move move move move with no structure or nuance. The formula isn't there anymore, it's just a hilariously jarring bundle of big moves.
The second flaw is that this isn't a 10 minute sprint. This is a 30 minute match. Even if this match was 15 minutes, it wouldn't have been good but at least it would have been understandable. There is barely a transition in this match. The best way to describe this would be playing a wrestling video game with unlimited finishers and kickouts. I was less than half way through the video of this match, and Jeff had just hit two consecutive Swanton Bombs for near falls, and within 30 seconds Angle was back on the offence. Minutes later, Jeff is in an Ankle Lock and Taz is begging him to tap out and live to fight another day. Does my review sound incoherent and without structure? Does it sound like I'm just listing moves? Well, that's pretty much how I felt watching this. There's no struggle - Hardy is barely selling it and baiting that he might tap. Again, this is barely over half way through this match.
I dare to say this is even an Angle formula match. One of the things that made those early 2000s Angle matches fun is the various counters. There was a struggle to actually hit finishers that made the eventual finishers more satisfying, and the kickout feel more important. This match, for a 30 minute draw, has zero struggle between moves, it felt. It got to the point where this match felt like an elaborate piss take from each guy to see how much bullshit they can pad into a match and still get a "This is Awesome" chant from the fans.
At the twenty minute mark, they go to a time limit draw for some arbitrary reason. Afterwards, Eric Bischoff comes out to announce this match must continue so we get 5 more minutes. On restart, Angle actually employs honest-to-God strategy. He goes immediately after the ankle of Hardy to work it over once again. It might have only lasted a moment, but I'm glad that after 20 minutes there was some semblance of storytelling however short it lasted. After that 5 minutes expires, Bischoff declares that they need another 5 minutes (as opposed to just removing the time limit, I don't know?). Ironically it's these overtime periods that are the only parts I found myself enjoying because it felt like there was strategy and selling of the exhaustion. It's almost like the match was backwards - instead of the bulk of the match used to set up the finishers, the finishers were used to set up the story of the match. Bizarre stuff. Towards the end of the second 5 minute period, Angle gets busted open in a nasty way. Once Angle gets the final ankle lock in, then finally Jeff begins to sell it like he's in peril, making the last 30 seconds or so quite dramatic. Of course the time runs out, and this time there's no restart which gives us our draw.
On the whole, I can't say I enjoyed this. It felt like the worst habits of both men. However I won't lie and I'll say that the last ten minutes were significantly better than the rest of the match. The first 20 was about as bad as an example of psychology in wrestling as you'll ever see.
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