Rebellion 2002

WWE Tag Team Championship
Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit (c) vs. Los Guerreros
And here come four of the vaunted “SmackDown! Six” to finally save this middling show. Angle and Benoit beat Edge and Mysterio six nights ago at No Mercy to become the inaugural champions, but the idea is that they still don’t get along too well. That might be the main story of the match, but an interesting sub-story develops as the crowd are just crazy hot for Angle, cheering him whenever he’s in the ring and chanting “We want Angle!” whenever he tags out, and they play up to that with Benoit taking the heat as Angle paces up and down on the apron like a madman.

There’s a really cool spot where Benoit presses Eddie into a face-first drop to the mat, catches him on the rebound and hits one of his legendarily harsh powerbombs in one smooth motion, then the champions run wild with a range of suplexes after Benoit gets the hot tag to Angle. Eddie escapes an Angle Slam attempt and shoves Angle into Benoit, triggering another argument between them and allowing Eddie to get the Lasso from El Paso, but Angle reverses that into an ankle lock. With the referee down after the Angle/Benoit collision, Chavo uses a title belt on Angle for a close call, but Benoit makes the save before Eddie walks into an Angle Slam for the pin. Really good match, with a couple of great frog splash spots from Eddie and some fine cheating from Los Guerreros, something which would eventually turn them from detestable scumbag heels into beloved babyfaces once Angle, Benoit, Mysterio and Edge all moved out of the tag team ranks and Team Angle moved in.
Final Rating: ***¾

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