10 Best WWE Matches Under 10 Minutes

In a taste of what was to come, Rey Mysterio contested his first-ever WWE pay-per-view match at SummerSlam 2002, sharing a thrilling encounter with Kurt Angle which came in just shy of the 10-minute mark.

For many fans, this one has gone down as the absolute gold standard for pay-per-view openers. It was so pulsating, so action-packed, that it set the tone for the remainder of the show; any matches that followed had to bring their A-game as a matter of course.

None of them, however, really managed to better this one in terms of skill and technique. The mat-based, submission-oriented Angle turned out to be the perfect foil for his high-flying opponent, making for some sequences the like of which you rarely see inside a WWE ring.

But it had plenty of story too. Rey was the plucky underdog - a role with which he probably became a little too familiar over subsequent years - and the Olympic Gold Medallist a wily ring veteran forever one or two steps ahead of the game. They both played their parts to a tee.