Examining Kurt Angle's Last 5 Major WWE Matches
What does the form book tell us?
Kurt Angle will compete in a WWE match this weekend for the first time in more than a decade when he joins two-thirds of the The Shield in the Tables, Ladders & Chairs ring for their five-on-three handicap bout with The Miz, Sheamus, Cesaro, Braun Strowman, and Kane.
Having shown as recently as this year that he is still capable of blowing away an audience of wrestling die-hards, Angle - who, despite what WWE would have us believe, hasn't exactly been in hibernation for the last 11 years of his life - has little to prove to anyone not named Vince McMahon.
But it's true that stepping inside the squared circle under the bright lights of the world's biggest and most-watched promotion carries its own pressure (albeit pressure that the guy who once sealed home-country Olympic gold with a broken freakin' neck isn't exactly a stranger to).
Angle's final WWE stretch back in 2006 saw him jump from Raw, SmackDown, and latterly ECW, allowing him the opportunity to work with opponents of varying sizes and styles - but, of course, he almost always delivered, whatever the occasion.
5. Vs. Randy Orton (One Night Stand 2006)
Technically, this was only Kurt Angle's penultimate WWE pay-per-view match before departing to TNA later in the year; the final one - also against Orton - would come a couple of weeks later at Vengeance (but that was a rematch, and about five minutes shorter in length).
What's remarkable is that, while many of his fellow WWE cast were jeered, Angle somehow managed to get the New York crowd on his side. Orton, by contrast, was cast in the role of an uber-heel, nearly coming to blows with one fan who had the temerity to slap him on the arm as he made his entrance.
Though the Olympic Gold Medalist had the support of the audience, the match perhaps suffered from its lack of violence at the foot of a card - featuring Mick Foley and Terry Funk in the same match - that promised pretty much nothing but violence. Angle and Orton, true to form, shared a pure wrestling match, broken up by the occasional move from the top turnbuckle.
The finish also seemed a little abrupt, with Angle suddenly going for the Ankle Lock (after looking, for some reason, as though he was going to make use of Ric Flair's Figure Four Leg Lock) just as the match began to kick into fourth gear. In the end, it was solid, but not spectacular.