WWE: Kurt Angle working with young stars in his farewell tour is awesome

Like it or not, it looks like Kurt Angle’s retirement opponent at WWE WrestleMania will be Baron Corbin, but The Olympic Hero promises to give us an interesting road to the big show.

After announcing his retirement plans, Angle started implementing his Farewell Tour. Week by week, he crosses off his list of names who he wants to wrestle before pulling up his retirement chair. Last week, the Tour gave us a solid match between Angle and Apollo. Tonight, the former WWE Champion tussled with fellow amateur athlete Chad Gable in an absolute barn burner of a match.

There has been a pattern for Angle’s Farewell Tour and it is that the gold medal winner is squaring up against young up and coming talent. This is awesome for several reasons, but the main one being it puts underutilized stars in a major spotlight that they may have never been afforded otherwise. Prior to the Angle Farewell Tour, Apollo hadn’t been seen on television in what feels like ages. Meanwhile, while Gable continues to stand out in tag team competition, it’s easy to forget that he has all the potential in the world to lead a tremendous singles career when the time is right.

Wrestling a veteran like Kurt Angle not only puts some much needed eyes on newer stars and gives them a rub, but the young guys can learn a thing or two from the experience; regardless whether they secure a win or loss. Wrestling a main event caliber WWE Hall of Famer in a hot pressure cooker situation teaches a fledgling young man aspiring for the same career what they need to understand for when they do get to the big leagues.

By time they do reach the main event for real, the young stars will be ready because they worked closely with an experienced main eventer in front of a hot crowd.

We should expect the Farewell Tour to continue every week on Raw until WrestleMania. We can’t wait to see which young star Angle crosses off his bucket list next.