6 Ups & 3 Downs From NXT Great American Bash 2023

1. A Bad Kurt Angle Knockoff

Gable Steveson
WWE

The problem with being compared to Kurt Angle is that you have an almost impossible task of living up to one of the best ever. But when you’re also the closest parallel to Angle – a fellow Olympic gold medalist and collegiate champion – the comparisons and scrutiny will be even more intense.

Gable Steveson had a mountain to climb heading into his debut match Sunday against Baron Corbin, and while he likely executed the game plan laid out for him well, it didn’t feel like fans were watching something special. Instead, they watched a highly skilled athlete trained at the Performance Center work a match with a highly skilled veteran, something that they see every week on NXT. Only, this one came out in a singlet carrying a gold medal and tried to cinch in an ankle lock.

The fans were not having this and rallied behind Corbin, clearly not feeling Steveson. They really weren’t having it when the match ended in a double count-out, drawing deserved “bulls***” chants.

The moral of the story: This match needed to go perfectly for Steveson to succeed, and they didn’t even book a finish. If you can’t book a finish in a guy’s heavily watched debut match, don’t book the match.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.