When Kurt Angle announced on 11th of March that he would be having his farewell match at WrestleMania, there were a mix of emotions from the WWE Universe. The rational side of the average fan knew that it was the right call because Angle is far past his physical prime. However, the fan deep inside would and will be sad that April will be the end of the Olympic Gold Medalist’s legendary career.
Then, instant speculation started brimming about who could possibly be Angle’s final WrestleMania opponent. After all, he’s been very vocal about wanting to work with a lot of young talent. With the excitement over all sorts of possibilities, fans instantly speculated who his opponent could be.
Then a week later, he announced his farewell opponent. It was none other than Baron Corbin. That’s right. Naturally, the audience and everyone watching around the globe felt flattened and underwhelmed because of the announcement. It was like the air was sucked out of the arena and it even appeared so with people watching.
Why would WWE choose Corbin of all people to be Angle’s final opponent? It’s not like they haven’t feuded before and it’s certainly not like they haven’t faced each other before. Sure, there’s a story to tell, but it’s glaringly obvious that this isn’t something fans want to see. To make things worse, Angle would immediately face Chad Gable on RAW, a dream opponent who fans would be thrilled to see face Angle at WrestleMania.
There was a big uproar on social media about it, so much so that even Kurt Angle’s wife ended up tweeting that the match was an “underwhelming” one (though she did revoke her statement a few hours later). In fact, WWE as well acknowledged the fact that fans weren’t happy with the announcement.
What many people don’t know is that WWE made this announcement knowing very well what the response was going to be. After all, why would fans want to see Baron Corbin as his final opponent? You’d think that such a match would allow Angle to gain his comeuppance over the former Acting RAW General Manager, but since it is his farewell match and Kurt Angle is a veteran from another era, you know that he’ll put over Corbin clean.
Moreover, pretty much all of his singles matches minus the last couple of ones have ended in defeat. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if Corbin is the one that he’s facing, then Angle winning would be a good payoff. Either way, what we believe is that Baron Corbin may not even end up competing against Kurt Angle at WrestleMania. The fact that WWE has already acknowledged the fan backlash (with the commentators even adding a bit of their own) just goes to show that WWE knows exactly what they’re doing.
If this is what they’re going for, it’s not necessarily a bad idea, as long as his actual opponent ends up being a good one. How many times can we say that we’ve seen a WrestleMania match being built by announcing a false WrestleMania match? In a way, it’s actually very clever from WWE’s end.
However, the downside of it for Baron Corbin is that if it is in fact just a part of the story, that leaves him with no match at WrestleMania. He’ll probably be relegated to the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania, and he won’t even win either. This would mean three straight kickoff show appearances for Corbin on the grandest stage of them all.
Hopefully, WWE is in clear control of this storyline and knows exactly what direction to take with it. The rest of the card itself is quite stacked, so there’s little chance that this match will be a show stealer. However, what WWE needs to make sure to avoid is Kurt Angle’s farewell match being a snoozer or a bathroom break for fans.
He certainly deserves better and so do the fans. Rest assured, whether he’s past his physical prime or not, we’re going to see a hungry Kurt Angle, looking to go out on his own terms and with the three “i’s” that have defined him throughout his career and life – Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence.
