Kurt Angle Explains Why He Didn’t Need Gimmick Matches With The Undertaker

Kurt Angle was so confident in his and Undertaker’s abilities that they didn’t need to have any special gimmicks.

The Undertaker’s storied career was filled with many famous matches. Many were great, but he also had some gimmick matches that didn’t weren’t as good. Over the decades, Undertaker has been involved in many casket matches, at least two Last Ride matches, the odd Inferno match, a Boiler Room Brawl, a Concrete Crypt match, and a Boneyard match.

Some fans believe that Undertaker was put in all of these gimmick matches so that the concept would cover for any limitations Undertaker or his opponent(s) would have. But there’s one wrestler that never needed any additional gimmicks when wrestling ‘Taker: Kurt Angle.

On an episode of his Kurt Angle Show podcast, Angle explained why he and Undertaker almost always wrestled in pure singles matches.

“Undertaker and I don’t need gimmicks. Our matches are so good, technically, in the ring, with nothing else, just the two of us. We had some of the greatest matches of all time.

Don’t get me wrong, gimmick matches are great. Fans love them, but I love wrestling guys like Undertaker, Chris Benoit, Shawn Michaels, and Stone Cold Steve Austin without having any gimmicks because you can prove that you can work with these guys and have amazing matches without all these gimmicks flying around everywhere.”

Kurt Angle wrestled the Undertaker in singles competition 26 times (including house show matches) between July 2000 and February 2006. All but one of these matches were standard singles matches. The only exception was a casket match in Orlando, Florida in January 2005.

h/t Fightful for the transcription