5 Best Wrestling Matches of 2003

3. Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle - 60-minute Ironman Match, Smackdown, September 16, 2003

This is arguably the greatest feud in SmackDown history...

This is the best match in SmackDown history. You had two outstanding grapplers facing off in a 60-minute Ironman match (with commercials), showing everyone why they were the best in WWE at the time.

There was much more story to this match than previous Angle-Lesnar matches. Lesnar was far more heelish here, resorting to underhanded tactics more than once. He used an excellent strategy early on: he got himself disqualified willingly by attacking Angle with a chair. It was perfect because it allowed Lesnar to wear Angle down quickly and effectively. Lesnar then scored two falls in the span of less than five minutes, even getting Angle to tap out to his own ankle lock.

As the match progressed, you got to see just how incredible both wrestlers’ conditioning was. For a good 45 minutes, Angle and Lesnar kept wrestling, hitting big moves inside the ring, outside it, and above it. They also didn’t spend much time resting either, they were actually competing for almost the entirety of the match.

There were even references to previous moments in SmackDown history in this match. At one point, Lesnar tried to F-5 Angle so that Angle’s legs hit the steel ring post. This was something he had done to other wrestlers previously, which made him a despicable person. But Angle reversed it and actually hit that very move on Lesnar, in one of the best examples of poetic justice in WWE in years.

Both Angle and Lesnar were in their primes when this match happened, which makes it such an entertaining watch. SmackDown was still great in those days, which makes people hope that the show can someday be as good as when this match happened.