The Stone Cold vs. Kurt Angle Rivalry Is Incredibly Underrated

2001 was a wild year for Vince McMahon and his promotion. The hugely successful Attitude Era came to a close at the greatest wrestling PPV, WrestleMania 17. Moreover, McMahon tried his hand at football and the XFL was launched. Long story short, this venture was a massive failure and had it not been for the XFL bombing, 2001 would have been the most profitable year in the history of the company.

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Lastly but most importantly, 2001 was the year of the Invasion. WWE was challenged by the unholy alliance of ECW and WCW and this storyline spanned a number of different PPV and concludes after months and months of twists and turns.

2001 Was A Wild Year For The Company

Thankfully, the Invasion storyline did not bomb like the XFL, but many consider the saga somewhat of a failure. The stakes were high, and the hype was legitimately real but in the end, the storyline fell far short of what it could have been.

For most of the feud, the folks from the alliance were booked as chumps and jobbers, but there were a few bright points during it all, especially the underrated feud between Kurt Angle and Steve Austin.

Steve Austin had undergone a heel turn at the conclusion of WrestleMania 17 and he shook hands with his arch-rival, Vince McMahon, to make sure that he walked out of the mega-event as WWE champion. Soon after, Austin turned on his new best friend, Vince McMahon, and defected over to the Alliance at the end of the Invasion PPV.

Austin was now the leader of the villainous stable and consequently, with the Rock absent from programming, Kurt Angle was the biggest babyface in the company. The Olympic hero wanted his hands on Austin, but the Texas Rattlesnake pushed Booker T and Angle actually ended up winning the WCW title, albeit for a very short while as Austin interfered in the championship rematch and Booker T regained the title.

The feud was now personal and these two waged wars against one another, brawling in backstage segments on almost every episode until Angle challenged Austin to put the WWE title on the line at SummerSlam 2001.

The SummerSlam match exceeded expectations and while the heel turn of Austin is often panned as a horrible decision, the Texas Rattlesnake played his role to perfection as he appeared legitimately unhinged throughout the match, borderline psychotic.

Meanwhile, Angle was right at home with his character of a hero trying to win back the title and bring it over to where it rightfully belonged. In the end, a bloodied Angle was screwed out of the title when Alliance referee, Nick Patrick declared him the winner by disqualification, but Austin walked out of SummerSlam as the champion.

On the very next episode of Raw, Austin was in the ring, celebrating his defense of the title alongside his good friends in the Alliance until Angle showed up. Reminiscent of the Texas Rattlesnake himself, Angle drove a milk truck down the ramp and showered the heel faction with a healthy serving of milk. Angle chugging down two cartons of milk is one of the most iconic yet underrated visuals in the history of RAW.

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The feud intensified further when Austin stole the gold medals of his rival and then tossed them down the bridge. Angle got his revenge the next week on RAW and his plan stretched out through the entire episode. Angle literally kidnapped Austin and brought him to a bridge, threatening to hurl him over and drown him as he had done to his precious gold medals.

Angle Was The Winner In The End

The Olympic hero then clowned the blindfolded and tied up Austin, forcing him to weep in surrender and coaxing him into accepting a match at Unforgiven for the world title. Upon getting all that he wanted, Angle pushed Austin into a kiddie pool and drove off.

Angle would finally get his hands on the WWE title at Unforgiven 2001, but the finish was controversial, as Austin had his foot under the bottom rope. The rematch for the title was set up on another episode of RAW and Austin ended up regaining the title, when William Regal turned on Angle and helped Austin win the match.

In the very end, Angle was the one who got the last laugh. The stakes were high during Survivor Series 2001 and while Angle had defected to the Alliance and joined hands with Austin, all was revealed to be a ruse by the Olympic hero and McMahon as in the closing seconds of the PPV, Angle clocked his bitter rival on the head with the title and the Rock seized the opportunity, putting Austin down with a Rock Bottom and winning the match.

Kurt Angle himself nominated this particular feud as his favorite. These two athletes were on-point throughout the rivalry and possessed unmistakable chemistry with one another. This was a classic hero versus villain storyline but despite being so simple, this feud ended up as a big highlight of 2001.