So today’s my little sister’s 10th birthday, and she came to me with a revelation. She said that wrestling is fake. I died a little on the inside.
Baron Corbin def. Dolph Ziggler – No Disqualification
So, this was the first pre-show match that I covered, and it will probably end up being the last one. Dolph Ziggler seemed to be in the extreme spirit with his white and pink pajama pants. When WWE says a match is No Disqualification, we usually can expect a chair shot or an announcer’s table spot. Of course, this was a pre-show match, so of course the fans weren’t going to get anything anywhere near something they’d see on the main card. But a low blow was really about as No DQ that they could have gotten? It’s not like these two were going anywhere, seeing as how this is their second straight pre-show match. The match was pretty RAW-esque. Nothing worth seeing really. It’s whatever. *1/2
Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson (The Club) def. The Usos – Tornado Tag Match
Tornado tag matches are hard to grade for me because in a way it’s like a fatal four way match. The match from an in-ring standpoint was okay, but their match on RAW to me had a better pace to it. It appears as though this match was trying to build up sympathy for The Usos because Anderson and Gallows managed to isolate them for most of the match. Problem is you can’t garner sympathy from a crowd that hates your guts. Too bad for The Usos. The match was fine, but I think it would have been better to have the fatal four way IC title match as the tune-up for the night (I think that match can steal the show). I think some of the action was sort of rushed without a lot of build-up to it though. Good, but nothing great. **1/2
Rusev def. Kallisto (C) – United States Championship
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have picked Kallisto to win. Knowing that Rusev would inevitably play up Kallisto’s lower back injury, there was little chance of Rusev not winning, but I figured WWE would have Kallisto defy the odds a la Cena. The match was pretty decent for the most part. Rusev concentrating on Kallisto’s lower back consistently was good to see and Kallisto did his typical Lucha, flippy stuff. The effort was there for both men, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt here. Now, I’m not sure what it says about Rusev that he went from facing Cena last year to Kallisto this year, showing that he hasn’t really grown, but Rusev getting the win here was the right move. Kallisto just wasn’t clicking like WWE intended. Rusev, at the very least, is able to garner heat and his alliance with Lana is more valuable than what Kallisto offers as of right now. The match was solid. But goodness, Kallisto’s abdomen could have popped right out with that Accolade from Rusev. Sheesh. ***
The New Day (C) def. The Vaudevillians – WWE Tag Team Championship
Another very good match. The Vaudevillians were great workers in NXT, and they did show that here again. From what I could get from this match, they really didn’t go all out and stuck to a basic formula, and it did work. There really isn’t much more to add from this other than question which team will be the ones to finally dethrone The New Day. Perhaps it’s Anderson/Gallows, but they don’t seem to be moving in that direction. There was some good spots, near falls and the crowd looked into the finish and seemed to buy for a second that the Vaudevillians would win once they hit their tag team finisher. Looks like they are saving the bigger matches for the latter part of the show. Interesting strategy. ***
The Miz (C) def. Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Cesaro – Intercontinental Championship
A video package for the Intercontinental Championship? Always great to see. The match, as I predicted, was epic. I saw a good amount of people say that The Miz would mess up things, and of course, they were wrong. The Miz was that slimy heel who tried to steal a pin on Cesaro at every turn until he finally got it and played his role effectively. But my goodness, there was a reason why I was excited for this match. Put it this way. If you took a shot for each time there was a near fall and the match could have ended, you should have put the ambulance on stand-by. There were so many agendas in the match. Cesaro with his stuff uppercuts and his upper body strength. Zayn with his early assault taking out Owens and brawling him to finish the match, which suggests to me that their rivalry is still going on. Of course, then, you had Zayn trying to prove that he was worthy of a champion, and his performance certainly lived up to the billing. I said before this match that I’d be hard pressed to find a time that I’ve been as excited over the IC Title scene than I was now, and now you can see why. Each man played their roles perfectly, the right man won, YES THE RIGHT MAN WON, the crowd was hot throughout, and this, to me, is a match of the year candidate. I watched the Shawn Michaels/Edge/Randy Orton/John Cena fatal four way at Backlash 2007 the other day, and then I saw this, and I gave these four men the respect they deserved. Awesome. Excellent. Whatever adjective to describe it. KO and Sayn has been involved in 3 straight awesome matches on PPV, I might add. I feel sorry for what has to follow this. ****1/2
Dean Ambrose def. Chris Jericho – Asylym Match
Remember when I said in my preview that I was afraid this was going to fall into the category of horrible matches at Extreme Rules in years past? The match had the makings of a match booked by Vince Russo, and I’m convinced his ghost was lurking in the room where this match was booked. Not since Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan’s Tower of Doom match at Uncensored 96 did I think something so stupid could be invented. I mean, good lord man. If this was an I Quit match, I’d quit on their behalf. That’s how brutal watching this match was. How can we go from the awesome fatal four way to something so devoid of logic. Nunchucks? A mop? Is this a Jackie Chan movie or something? The action was slow-paced, the crowd was visibly bored and didn’t give the crowd any reason to care. I don’t know what the exact time of the match was, but I felt it was about half an hour, and that was 15 minutes too long. I can only imagine they wanted to make this a 3 hour show so they chose to. I’m sorry, but this performance didn’t help either man. I can’t help but notice that the past two Extreme Rules PPV’s had two duds in cage matches, as I pointed out in my preview. Wyatt/Cena in 2014 inside a steel cage and Orton/Rollins last year inside….you guessed it…..a steel cage. This was basically a steel cage match. Cole kept telling us there was no escape, but Jericho was dangling from the outside and was one drop from doing just that. It was a disgraceful showing after an incredible match and just took the crowd out of it. I can only hope Styles/Reigns over-delivers because when I say this was bad, I mean it was BAD. To top it off, it was LONG. Ambrose didn’t even sell the match by giving a little limp. He just walked away. I did appreciate the thumb tacks and Jericho’s 46 year old self manning up to take that spot, but if the entire match was building up to that spot, then burn it with fire. It wasn’t worth it. I was originally going to grade this match -*, but because of the finish I’ll upgrade it just a little, even though it isn’t much of one in the grand scheme of things. If I had one of those pens that can erase the memory of everyone who watched this save for the finish, I would. I was hoping the Golden State/Oklahoma City Thunder game would be competitive to watch in the meantime, but it ended up being a 36 point rout in the third quarter. Just my luck. Excuse my rant. Moving on. 1/2*
Charlotte (C) def. Natalya – WWE Women’s Championship
I don’t know why Dana Brooke would even help Charlotte, and clearly Dana paid off the music guy to play Ric’s music, but dammit. We actually get technical moves and ACTUAL wrestling from Charlotte and Natayla after that Jericho/Ambrose snoozefest and THAT is what we got? This show is beginning to fall off a cliff. Not that it matters, I guess, but the fact that Charlotte is getting a lot of help is making her look more and more weak by the day. I thought we earned a great wrestling match from the two after Jericho/Ambrose but Vince once again his proverbial middle finger in our faces and we’ll just have to take it. It’s a damn shame, but whatever. Natayla wasn’t winning even if it was straight up, but another distraction finish is starting to make this formulaic, and it makes Natayla look dumb as hell for falling for the distraction. I guess that’s a trend in the New Era. Got off to a good enough start, but unoriginal booking and a hot garbage distraction finish yet again bogs this one down a few notches. **
Roman Reigns (C) def. AJ Styles – WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Lost in the fact in Rollins’ return and Roman kicking out everything AJ threw at him was the fact that it was an awesome brawl. The term “Extreme Rules” gets tossed around a lot and not a lot of matches fit the billing, but gladly, this one did. Roman and AJ had a tremendous brawl all across the arena and you can tell that it was a pure battle of attrition. The interference wasn’t surprising at all to me, but once again, Roman was able to reign supreme. Roman works his best matches with smaller, more nimble wrestlers, and it showed once again tonight. Now, I’m not sure what WWE’s planning, but I hope they included a brand new back for AJ Styles when he signed his contract, because he took a walloping tonight. I’m sure not a lot of people are happy with Reigns defying the odds YET AGAIN, but if we can just take for a moment the match we saw, it lived up to the billing, and almost made up for the previous 45 minutes of hot garbage that we all had to suffer through. So great job to all that is involved. And did I mention Seth Rollins is back? ****1/4
Conclusion:
So it’s basically like this. It was sort of an uneven show, but I think there was more good than bad in the grand scheme of things. The undercard, being the firs three matches, were all inoffensive at best with decent action, though it did resemble what you would see on Monday Night RAW. Then, the IC fatal four way completely blew the roof off of this place, but then then we experienced the cooling down period with that atrocity of a match between Ambrose and Jericho followed by another horrendous finish to Charlotte and Natayla and picked it right back up with Styles/Roman and the Rollins run in that followed. That’s called a roller coaster, folks. As angry as I sounded over the Asylum Match, it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the show as a whole, even though it took up about a sixth of the show on its own. The two easy recommendations are the fatal four way and the main event unless you have an aversion to wrestlers who look like taxi drivers or wish Roman Reigns in WWE was never a thing. As a show, I more enjoyed it than loathed it, so I’ll say thumbs up but whatever you do, don’t you DARE lay your eyes upon that Asylym match. Although I think a cure for insomnia could be found. Scientists may have something here. Until next time. Oh, and did I mention Seth Rollins is back?
