WrestleMania 35 Wish List: A Focus On The Future (For The Most Part)
By John Brown
5. Kurt Angle Receiving an Appropriate Final Opponent
As a Pittsburgh native, I have associated Kurt Angle’s names with greatness since…well…puberty. He has been an absolute cyborg since winning the gold medal in the 1996 Olympics, and transitioned into professional wrestling with heavenly grace. Angle would spend his prime years in WWE in a position that put him near the top workhorses in the company.
Arguably, his greatest accomplishment came as one of the ring technicians who put the SmackDown brand on the map along with the likes of Edge, Rey Mysterio, and Eddie Guerrero.
While Monday Night Raw housed primarily household legends, Angle and the SmackDown locker room were writing their own chapters in the annals of WWE, putting on technical clinics on a nightly basis. SmackDown’s ratings would regularly challenge Raw’s as mainstream fans provided their first indications that in-ring performance needed to be more of a priority.
He also won a few championships along the way. Just a couple.
A trailblazing competitor the likes of Kurt Angle deserves a final opponent who can match the magnitude of his departure. Baron Corbin does not match the magnitude.
Baron Corbin seems to have the kind of heat that comes not from evil, but heat from being given precious television time despite not being over. He is young and has plenty of time to find his character. However, at the moment, he is not wanted in this match, nor is he wanted in many others.
Kurt Angle found his long ago and has turned into a Hall of Fame career. This stage is simply too grand for him to share his final spotlight with Baron Corbin.
My wish here is for the Kurt Angle portion of the show to provide the biggest surprise of the evening. John Cena or The Undertaker, two legends who have had rivalries with Angle over the years, would be the most appropriate and would give the fans at MetLife Stadium a reason to replace the groans Corbin’s inclusion has generated.