Opinion by twosheds316

THE TWO SHEDS REVIEW by Julian Radbourne
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There’s something that’s been bothering me these past few weeks, something that’s been niggling at the back of my mind every time I watch Smackdown, and it only really dawned on me what it was while I was watching No Way Out a few days ago. I found myself asking if Kurt Angle really deserved to be World Heavyweight Champion.

Let’s have a look at Angle’s match record before he jumped ship from Raw to Smackdown on January 13th;

January 8th: Lost Elimination Chamber match at New Year’s Revolution.
January 2nd: Defeated John Cena in a first blood match on Raw.
December 26th: Lost to Daivari via count out on Raw.
December 12th: Defeated Ric Flair on Raw.
November 27th: Lost to John Cena at Survivor Series.

And these are just Angle’s singles and title matches on Raw and pay-per-view. They don’t take into account his losses to John Cena at house shows, or his losses in tag-team matches.

Now I’m not one to put down Kurt’s accomplishments in both the amateur and professional wrestling fields, and I know that the circumstances surrounding the World title situation on Smackdown were beyond the control of the creative team, but let’s look at things in a slightly more realistic manner. If Kurt had been a heavyweight boxer rather than a heavyweight wrestler, would such a record have been enough for a shot at the World title? I think not.

Although professional wrestling has added touches of realism in recent years, recent records of wrestlers going into title matches is something that hasn’t been addressed. Angle’s recent record before his World title win is just one example of this. For instance, Mark Henry hadn’t done anything of note in the WWE for nearly three years before he got a crack at the World title. Last summer, the late Eddie Guerrero lost a series of bouts to Rey Mysterio, actually only winning one match of the series. A few weeks later he got a World title shot against Batista.

I could give several other examples, but I think you know where I’m heading with this.

It’s very rare these days that we see a storyline where a wrestler spends weeks and months beating every wrestler he faces, not letting anything get in his way, so he can get a shot at a title to prove how good he is, that he is the best of the best.

But these days it seems that the creative teams are incapable of devising such storylines, and that’s what makes professional wrestling less appealing these days. Let’s forget about making new stars, and just stick with the same old faces we’ve seen for years on end.

After all, it worked for WCW, didn’t it?