10 Great Wrestling Matches You Didn’t Know You Wanted
5. Kurt Angle Vs. Roderick Strong - WWE SmackDown, January 13, 2005
Name Star Vs. A Jobber hasn’t topped wish lists since 1993, when the WWF debuted Monday Night RAW and, in the process, put a definitive end to the old televised model. All-Star action has been mandatory for a quarter of a century.
The sight of a debuting act shredding some poor, puny b*stard remains evergreen, as a result of the shiny new toy novelty factor, but an established act doing the shredding is hardly must-watch stuff. If, and only if, that poor, puny b*stard can sell as if he’s about to actually die, then we’re talking.
Enter Roderick Strong in his early, enhancement talent years, drafted in to put Kurt Angle over as part of his Invitational series, which, while never boring—Angle was great at delivering a pasting—was never unmissable.
If you’ve not seen this, don’t miss it.
Not a mere before they were famous cameo curio, the first few moments of this are absolutely amazing. Strong slaps Angle in the face. This is a stupid thing to do. Angle chases him around the ring. When he catches Strong, Angle looks like an actual shark submerging him under water—a shark with the ability to punch people, stiffly and repeatedly, in the back of the head. Strong actually gets a near-fall, in an awesome moment, which just incenses Angle further, leading to a crime scene of forearm blows, skull punches, full-force slaps, headbutts, and bites to the head.
All wrestling matches should go 1:50.