Lol Can you repost your review of the Cage match?
Kurt Angle Vs Chris Benoit - Steel Cage Raw 2001
We've got Austin on commentary, who is scouting his future opponent Chris Benoit as he takes on Kurt Angle inside a steel cage!
As I'm sure everyone knows, Angle and Benoit were in a fierce rivalry in early 2001, and while their feud was taking a backseat to the Benoit/Jericho/Austin feud, both guys still hated each other, and being able to go at it one more time in a cage on TV, with nothing really at stake, they probably didn't mind one bit.
Angle wastes no time at all, charging at Benoit the moment he (Benoit) enters the cage, and out come the suplexes, followed by a couple of Crossface attempts from Benoit too.
Angle brings some nice hate here, from starting the match off the way he did, to quickly resorting to slamming Benoit into the cage as many times as possible after Benoit goes for the CF. More suplexes from Angle lol, this time a few gut wrench suplexes, which makes a nice change. Angle for some reason decides to climb out of the cage, when walking out would simply be easier, but hey, they wouldn't have had a logical reason to give us that German suplex from the ropes...
As awesome as the spot was, it was simply a spot for the sake of it. Angle didn't need to climb the cage, so the whole thing was literally just to set up that spot. I'm not complaining though, because it was fucking cool.
Shame about 30 seconds later Angle is showing no signs of being affected by it, and Benoit notices too so he repeatedly throws Angle into the cage in hopes of forcing him to sell .... Benoit then makes a retarded move... the EXACT SAME RETARDED MOVE as Angle. He has Angle down, and goes to climb out of the cage instead of walking out. And Angle catches him, and gives him an Angle Slam.
And here comes the moonsault. Even AUSTIN on commentary calls Angle stupid for not going for a cover after his FINISHING MOVE. So instead of perhaps winning the match, Angle does a completely pointless move and he pays for it. And again, like the German Suplex spot, 30 seconds later Angle is back on top as if nothing happened to him.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
FUCKING SELL YOU MORON!!!
OH my god, he's doing it again. 5 or 6 German suplexes from Benoit, and he STILL gets right back up and charges towards Benoit.
Angle gets put down straight away, and Benoit decides to climb out (Benoit went for the door after the 5 or 6 suplexes... but when he hits a few more, he decides to climb out instead? WTF?!?!). Austin is waiting for Benoit on the floor with a chair though, so Benoit, instead of climbing down and going through the DOOR, somehow comes to the conclusion that the only option is to go for a diving headbutt from the top of the cage. Did Benoit forget how to have a match that makes sense? Does working with Angle multiple times over a few months somehow make you retarded in the ring?
The end is near, with Benoit finally going out of the door, but Austin slams it into his head. Angle looks like he is going out the door, but thinks better of it, and for the first time in the match going over the cage makes sense (Austin can't be trusted). Angle wins. Yey.
Ok, now there are 2 sides to this match. The first is that its fun to watch. 2 guys with great chemistry going at it full force inside a cage, throwing big bombs at each other. On the other side though... you have pure retarded-ness. Angle sells worse than Gil on The Simpsons, the spots are there for no other reason than to have them (and I know, plenty of other matches have them for the sake of it too, but a lot of the time they can be explained, especially tag matches), and other than MOVES~!, there isn't much to this one.
So, overall, I DID enjoy watching it for nothing more than fun, but in terms of match quality, its kinda lacking. I'd put quite a few cage matches ahead of this one, but it sure as hell isn't the worst cage match ....
Rating: ***1/2