And thus, we have the reason one cannot fairly compare Benoit to Angle, and to a lesser extent Michaels.
Benoit has been around for so long that he has toured Japan and worked WCW and ECW before he came to WWE and began working the constricting WWE style. Kurt, and if memory serves Shawn, have both worked knowing nothing but the WWE style, so truly there is no way to fairly include Benoit's work outside WWE in a comparison of the two. Angle has never gotten a chance to step out of WWE style, so who is to say that he couldn't put on the types of **** and ***** classics that Benoit was putting on in Japan? We simply don't know, as we have nothing but WWE style to go on for Kurt, and we all know that that style can make any worker look like a four-move wonder.
Just my two cents.