Kurt Angle Says He's 'Not A Big Fan' of Cinematic Matches

While the cinematic matches by WWE and AEW during the pandemic have drawn rave reviews from many wrestling fans, there's one major name in the business who is not a fan of them: Kurt Angle. WWE set the bar for their cinematic matches with the Boneyard Match and Firefly Funhouse matches at WrestleMania, and they followed that up with the Money In The Bank match last month. However, Angle said in an interview with CBR.com that he acknowledges they are good for business even if he's not a fan.

"I think they are (good for business)," Angle explained. "I'm not a big fan. I've always been a pure wrestler. And I've always felt that if you're going to have the biggest and best matches, they need to be in the ring, and they need to be wrestling. But the business has changed dramatically."

He went on to explain that he believes we'll continue to see more of this type of work and even acknowledged liking the Firefly Funhouse match.

"The Firefly [Funhouse] was phenomenal. I loved every second of it, and it was very intriguing. I give Bray Wyatt and John Cena a lot of credit for what they were able to do in it. But business is changing and you're going to see more Boneyard matches like The Undertaker versus AJ Styles, the TLC matches, things are changing a lot," Angle said.

So despite not personally liking this way of telling a wrestling story and preferring a match in an actual ring, Angle sounds like he's still able to enjoy cinematic matches for what they are.

He continued, "So I think that these guys have taken wrestling to a new level, and you're going to see a lot of the matches now pre-taped rather than live," he said. "We're not going to get away from the live events and having it live. I think that 90% of it will be like that because that's the way the business is. You don't travel city-to-city to show a pre-taped match, you want the fans that are sitting there live to see it. But as you know the coronavirus situation put them in a terrible spot and they had to think of something that would bring eyeballs to the table."

Which has been your favorite cinematic match so far? Let us know in the comments section below!