Kurt Angle's 5 best Tag-Team matches

Kurt Angle, the current General Manager of Monday Night RAW returned to the ring recently at October’s TLC event and he is slated to wrestle later on this month as the captain of RAW’s Survivor Series 5-man team. While he has been known as a singles wrestler for the majority of his career, he is a four-time tag team champion, with two reigns coming in WWE and the other two during his tenure in TNA.

Everybody loves talking about Angle’s classic matches against Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker and Samoa Joe, but his great showings in tag team competition often go unnoticed. Since his first two matches back on the WWE roster feature the Olympics Gold Medalist as part of a team, let’s talk about the best tag team matches of Kurt Angle’s career.

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#5 Kurt Angle & AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels & Kazarian (Slammiversary X)

Kurt Angle tore it up in TNA

Many people don’t realize the fact that Kurt Angle actually spent the majority of his pro wrestling career in TNA. He was in WWE for a little under seven years (November 1999 to August 2006) and with TNA for almost nine and a half years (October 2006 to March 2016). During this time span, he was an insanely decorated champion, holding TNA’s World Title on six different occasions. He is also a 2-time tag team champion, once with Sting and a few years later with AJ Styles. He was also technically the TNA Tag Champions by himself for two weeks before Sting won a match to become the other half of the Tag Champs. It was TNA in the second half of 2007. The less said the better.

Kurt’s partnership with Styles wasn’t long term either, but it certainly wasn’t the convoluted mess that his reign five years earlier was. He held the belts for about a month overall in 2007, and at Slammiversary in 2012 he and Styles defeated “The World Tag Team Champions of The World” in a spectacular match. They would lose the titles back to Daniels and Kazarian 18 days later.

Kurt wasn’t a prolific tag team wrestler, but teaming him up with another one of the best wrestlers in the world in AJ Styles and putting them in the ring with one of the best tag teams in recent memory in Daniels and Kazarian (who are coming up on 6 years as a duo) was certainly the right formula in June of 2012.

#4 Team WWF vs. The Alliance (Survivor Series 2001)

WWF vs. The Alliance — winner take all

The final match of the ill-fated WCW/ECW invasion of the WWF in 2001, this match featured Ten of the most talented wrestlers that the two rival factions had to offer were present there. This contest was the big blow-off to the feud that spanned seven months and was supposed to once and for all determine the dominant force between The WWF and The WCW/ECW Alliance. Let’s not talk too much about the fact that eight of the ten men involved in the match were WWF wrestlers who had all been with the company for at least two years up until that point. It didn’t make this match any less awesome, and it was a fitting way to put this mostly maligned story to rest. It was a great match that involved a dumb storyline, just like pretty much everything else going back to April of that year.

This 45-minute long elimination tag match saw Kurt Angle (who was part of The Alliance team) turn his back on rival Stone Cold Steve Austin (also part of the Alliance team… yeah, I know) to help the WWF win the war and kill WCW and ECW for good. Angle was a big player in the invasion storyline and not only was he great in this fantastic match, but he also played an important role in the finish of the match, even though he had already been eliminated. Find this match and watch it if you have an hour to spare.

For reference, the match was Team WWF (The Rock, Kane, Big Show, The Undertaker & Chris Jericho) vs. The Alliance (Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Shane McMahon, Rob Van Dam and Booker T).

#3 Team WWF vs. The Alliance (InVasion 2001)

The Inaugural Brawl

This was the main event of the pay-per-view that “officially” kicked off the invasion storyline that started about two months prior when WCW and ECW guys started showing up on RAW and SmackDown shows. The big occasion that really got the storyline going was when Booker T showed up out of nowhere at the previous month’s King of the Ring show, putting Stone Cold through a table and almost costing him the WWF Championship. Booker T was the WCW World Champion and the United States Champion at the time, so shots were officially fired.

Kurt Angle, who was essentially a fluke one-time WWF Champion, was finally beginning to gain some traction again after a lacklustre start to 2001, which saw him lose his title to The Rock right before WrestleMania. He had a good but an unimportant bout with Chris Benoit at ‘Mania instead, but he was just kind of hanging around. He joined forces with the heel team of Edge and Christian and engaged in a number of comedic performances, which helped him become a bigger focus of the weekly TV shows.

He became embroiled in a feud with Shane McMahon (who owned WCW and was feuding with Vince McMahon, whose affections Kurt was hoping to earn) while at the same time competing in the King of the Ring tournament that saw him wrestle both Edge and Christian in the same night. That was essentially the end of the group, but it was his performance in the match against Shane McMahon on the same night that really put Angle back in the spotlight.

After his insane street fight with Shane ‘O Mac, Kurt’s popularity started going off the charts and he soon officially entered the ranks as a good guy. Kurt was a main figure in the first 5-on-5 (non-elimination) tag team match, as it looked like he was going to earn the victory for Team WWF before Stone Cold Steve Austin turned on his company by giving Angle a Stone Cold Stunner, thus joining the Alliance and allowing Booker T and the WCW/ECW Alliance to pick up the win. Don’t worry, Kurt would eventually get his revenge (and that match will be on this list as well).

For reference, the match was Team WWF (Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Chris Jericho & Kurt Angle) vs. The Alliance (Booker T, DDP, Rhyno & The Dudley Boyz).

#2 Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit vs. Edge & Rey Mysterio (SmackDown - November 7, 2002)

Kurt Angle & Rey Mysterio, two of the SmackDown Six.

This was a 2-out-of-3 falls match for the newly minted WWE Tag Team Championship that had been created for SmackDown after the show lost the tag titles in the original brand split. It was a rematch of the Tag Team Title Tournament final that took place at No Mercy a couple weeks earlier, which is regarded by many as the 2002 Match of the Year. Angle and Benoit were the inaugural champions, but their reign was short-lived, as they were not a cohesive unit and were thus bested by Edge and Mysterio, who were good friends and even better tag-team partners.

This match took place near the end of the “SmackDown Six” era that saw a pretty average RAW program being outshined, both in storylines and in the ring, by Paul Heyman who led blue brand on a weekly basis. Much of this was thanks to Eddie & Chavo Guerrero, Edge & Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit, who were putting on amazing matches against each other in various combinations for months upon months.

There was some unbelievable work in this match, and it was free on television! It often goes forgotten because it was overshadowed by the first match back in October, but this one is absolutely worth going out of your way to watch.

#1 Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit vs. Edge & Rey Mysterio (No Mercy 2002)

The 2002 Match of the Year

This is not only the best Kurt Angle tag team match, but it was the best match of the entire year of 2002 and one of the greatest tag team matches of all time. This was the final match in the tournament to crown the first WWE Tag Team Champions for the SmackDown brand, and it delivered in spectacular fashion. Angle and Benoit were reluctant tag team partners who had spent a number of months as rivals in 2001 before Benoit’s injury and the beginning of the invasion storyline. They would rekindle their feud not long after losing the tag title belts and failing to regain them over the course of the following months.

It didn’t stop them from being an unbelievable team (short-lived, just like all of Angle’s tag partners, which is par for the course for him), and if you haven’t seen this match you really should just drop everything and find it immediately. You won’t regret it. Edge and Mysterio were the perfect opponents for these two, and you would be hard-pressed to find a better tag team match.

If you want to compile a comprehensive list of great tag team matches that Kurt Angle participated in, just go to the WWE Network and watch SmackDown from August through November of 2002. Heck, just watch SmackDown from that time period in general. It was amazing.