20 Greatest WWE SummerSlam Matches Ever

16. Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle - WWE Championship (2001)

The WWE Championship match between Steve Austin © and Kurt Angle was the match of the night at one of the best Summerslams of all-time. Angle was coming off a very good couple of months where he began rounding the corner into one of the elite workers in the business. Good God that man was a prodigy, was he not? Less than three years after he had begun training to be a pro wrestler, he was out there having a classic match against one of the other greats of all-time. Austin was trying so hard to be a heel and, low and behold, it actually seemed to work on the San Jose crowd that night. He was going nuts as a character, giving new meaning to the phrase €œtough love€ in regards to his relationships with his underlings in the WCW/ECW Alliance. Angle had been a heel just a couple of months before, but his matches on Raw with Chris Benoit and at King of the Ring with Shane McMahon €“ both iconic leaps forward for Angle€™s performance level €“ made the audience take notice and turn him into a protagonist. Since both were trying to get over new characters, it made for an interesting dynamic between Austin and Angle. The match at Summerslam made Angle sympathetic for the first time and showed that he could successfully play the role of the main-event babyface should the need arise.
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"The Doc" Chad Matthews has written wrestling columns for over a decade. A physician by trade, Matthews began writing about wrestling as a hobby, but it became a passion. After 30 years as a wrestling fan, "The Doc" gives an unmatched analytical perspective on pro wrestling in the modern era. He is a long-time columnist for Lordsofpain.net and hosts a weekly podcast on the LOP Radio Network called "The Doc Says." His first book - The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment - ranks the Top 90 wrestlers from 1983 to present day, was originally published in December 2013, and is now in its third edition. Matthews lives in North Carolina with his wife, two kids, and two dogs.