Shawn Michaels v Kurt Angle (Wrestlemania 21, 4/3/05)
I had no intention of ever watching this again, but on the sort of whim one only gets on a day off work with nothing better to do I did in fact watch it again, probably for the first time in 15 years. And honestly, somewhat shockingly, I thought it was very, very decent! Michaels slaps Angle right at the start, then again later, I guess just to get under his skin and rile an already mad bastard up even more. Even as a man of god, a good Christian fella, Michaels will always find a way to be a wee prick. The early stuff with Michaels working the headlock and a brief short armscissors was good and didn't feel stupid. I liked Angle getting more and more frustrated, yanking Shawn's hair, at one point checking to see if his cauliflower ear hadn't burst and looking at Michaels like he wanted to throttle him. They have a nice uncooperative bit of phone booth boxing in the corner and as the ref' drags Shawn away Angle just clubs him in the neck to take over. The big transition leads to the back work you all know is coming, but the Angle Slam into the post is a great spot even if it didn't land perfectly. Still, the INTENT is what matters and then the actual back work was pretty good. Angle was appropriately vicious and I loved him digging the knee into Michaels' kidneys and ripping his head back by the hair to apply a bow and arrow. Shawn's wild cross body that busted Angle's mouth open was a great spot and the follow up with the springboard splash onto the table was a believable way to get him back into things. That essentially works as the reset and I thought the finishing run from then on out was excellent. 15 years ago I'd have hated Angle popping up from the missed moonsault to hit the top rope Angle Slam, but really at this point I don't even care. It's not like Shawn had strung together much offence anyway -- Angle had basically missed that one move in the previous few minutes and if you want to stretch things you could say he played possum to bait Michaels into climbing in the first place. The subsequent nearfall was off the charts as well. This was pretty much perfect roid jockey lunatic Angle, screaming at Michaels to tap out, literally spitting blood, eyes nearly popping out of his shiny bald head. The surprise superkick after that was amazing, and even if Michaels' dead-eyed slow crawl selling was goofy it at least kept the pacing believable. And that in turn let the final Angle pop-up stay believable, with Shawn getting back to his feet like a pensioner and Angle jolting back to life and grabbing the ankle lock, like something from a horror movie as Lawler mentions on commentary. I thought that last bit with Angle hooking the hold and Michaels trying like crazy to fight him off was sensational. He'd roll through and Angle would go with him, he'd twist and squirm and Angle would just make guttural animal noises and they milked the eventual tap out perfectly. It's not easy to have the crowd completely on strings during an extended submission like that. At a certain point you kind of know they're reaching the ropes, and if they don't it'll usually drag on too long and the heat will dwindle a bit because THEN it's obvious the tap out is coming. This hit the sweet spot and it might actually be the best acting I've ever seen from Michaels.
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