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What's the story?
During WWE's European tour, 'The Olympic Champion' Kurt Angle made his return to wrestling at house shows after an eleven-year absence when he surprised everyone in Birmingham, England on November, 7th.
He helped The Shield face The BAR and Samoa Joe. We've got almost the whole match for you to enjoy!
In case you didn't know...
The Shield have been operating without Roman Reigns on the WWE's recent tour, as 'The Big Dog' has been recovering from a viral illness. Whilst it was Kurt Angle who stepped in for Reigns at TLC 2017, it was Triple H who had been delighting fans in the UK by teaming with The Shield more recently.
However, Kurt Angle, not Triple H, was advertised for the live show in Birmingham, but no-one in their wildest dreams would have thought that the RAW General Manager would be appearing in any kind of wrestling capacity until he posted this tweet himself.
The heart of the matter
I was in attendance at the Birmingham Indoor Arena for this historic moment. Sadly, I was a little far away but I had a pretty good view of the whole ring and managed to capture how it all went down.
The Shield made their iconic entrance from the crowd, which happened to be literally in front of where I was sitting, and then when they hit the ring Seth Rollins took to the microphone and announced Kurt Angle to an incredibly huge pop from the crowd.
The match then got underway with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose essentially taking it in turns to receive a prolonged amount of punishment until they could get the hot-tag to Kurt Angle.
Angle got in some great moments including throwing Samoa Joe around like it was TNA all over again, escaping the Coquina Clutch and the Gotch Neutralizer, multiple German suplexes to The BAR and, of course, the Shield Triple Powerbomb
Check out the match below.
What's next?
Kurt Angle is currently heading into Survivor Series as the captain of Team RAW in the men's Traditional Survivor Series match.
He also needs RAW to triumph over SmackDown LIVE. Otherwise, Stephanie McMahon will add Kurt Angle to the list of General Managers she's fired.
Author's take
It was fantastic to see Kurt Angle's first house show match since his return to the WWE, even if his in-ring roll was fairly limited. This was a special moment as well as Angle currently isn't advertised for any more house show appearances.
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