Lucrative and famous for its’ weekly TV, pro wrestling tends to be better when viewed as an anthology. Nobody actually knows how to do episodic wrestling TV to begin with, but also wrestling’s variety has become more widely available; its’ history continues to be told and re-told; and the realities of the people who do it for a living are more visible than ever. If there is one thing I know about Triple H – and it’s just one thing – it’s that he understands the value in harnessing this.
Extreme Rules came amid continued change to maybe not WWE’s business model but how WWE promoted wrestling — or at least what they promoted about how they promoted wrestling. McMahon retired a couple months ago, not a big sample size but enough time for Stephanie McMahon and Triple H’s kind-of new regime to kind-of start settling in. The results? Mostly returns. Returns of concepts or employees unceremoniously removed by McMahon the last few years, and in this show’s case the return of extreme matches to Extreme Rules and NXT’s Fight Pit and of probably Bray Wyatt, too.
The 14th WWE Extreme Rules took place in Philadelphia, PA, at the Wells Fargo Center, a 10-minute drive from the ECW Arena. Paul Heyman, who in both ECW and WWE cracked the code on weekly wrestling TV a handful of times, provided a voiceover for the show’s intro. Ariel Helwani did one for the Fight Pit match too and, look, maybe the anthology should stick to wrestling.
1. Good Old Fashioned Donnybrook Match: Sheamus, Ridge Holland & Butch vs. Gunther, Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci
Brutes were brawling. Butch was bumping. Babyfaces were getting their ASSES KICKED. Sheamus and Gunther have quickly put together a great rivalry and this 6-man Tornado Tag was another great addition; their showdown and Sheamus’ blazing babyface comeback were the highlights of a match filled with them.
Butch going at all 3 Imperium guys and a spot late in the match where the Brutes dropped the fun of Sheamus’ 10 Beats of the Bodhrán to just swing wildly at Gunther were great bits in between all the good old-fashioned violence, as was mad lad Gunther going through a table. Amazing match that started the show on a note so high I’m not sure anyone else found it. ****1/4
2. Extreme Rules Match – SmackDown Women’s Title: Liv Morgan [c] vs. Ronda Rousey
The first two Morgan/Rousey matches over-delivered in how decent they were; this just sucked. WWE hardcore matches have seen a few different iterations but not many lower depths than the bat and chairshots done here, swung with the urgency of — well — someone who wasn’t trying to actually hurt somebody! *3/4
3. Strap Match: Drew McIntyre vs. Karrion Kross w/ Scarlett
Kross and Scarlett’s WWE return came like an hour after McMahon retired, and they picked up right where they left off except they were on SmackDown now. Before the match, they punched and grabbed at each other outside of the ring for a while without the leather strap attached to their wrists. When the bell rang, they did mostly the same thing except the strap was now attached. It wasn’t that exciting.
Kross controlled with a few strap shots before Drew started firing the crowd up with signature moves and then — MACE!!! Not the wrestler/model, the actual spray — from Scarlett, to Drew’s eyes. **3/4
4. Ladder Match – RAW Women’s Title: Bianca Belair [c] vs. Bayley
I’m tired of talking about how tired the Ladder Match is, but here was another one — impressive athleticism if not pro wrestling, with nothing that distinguished itself from all the other Ladder Matches (besides the finish, which was admittedly so freaking cool). ***
5. I Quit Match: Edge vs. Finn Balor
Finn Balor did two things I loved here: 1) entered in a freaky mask, 2) worked the leg. Besides that there were too many clichés hanging around, too many bumps through the barricade or stretches of aimless brawling or just a referee holding a microphone up to someone’s mouth waiting for them to quit. These things all worked at one point; here they just felt lesser than — well-intentioned but over-manufactured, a feeling that only grew when the rest of the Judgment Day, Rey Mysterio and Beth Phoenix all ran out to shoot a short film for the finish. ***1/4
6. Fight Pit: Matt Riddle vs. Seth Rollins (Guest Referee: Daniel Cormier)
There was too much holding back the “real” approach they were going for, from Cormier’s distracting waistline to one of the guys expected to pull it off being Seth Freakin’ Rollins, whose grappling skill has always been suspect. His opponent was an actual former UFC fighter, albeit one that’s now a WWE wrestler with merch that says “4:20 BRO.” Matt Riddle has had a heck of a year climbing WWE’s card, but whether the crowd was waiting for Wyatt or maybe just appalled by him selling for Rollins’ Fight Pit matwork, he didn’t come across like the headliner.
Besides some stilted brawling the Fight Pit’s elevated platform only came into play when Riddle dropped a senton bomb from it, which could’ve felt like a bigger deal. Then Riddle choked Rollins out with a triangle choke, which could’ve also felt like a bigger deal. ***
Go search the Internet for the return of Bray Wyatt and friends at the end of Extreme Rules. It was weird, and it was powerful — The First Dance but with more special effects and costumes and less time to build a grudge.
Happy Thoughts: The opening match and Bray Wyatt’s return were awesome and made this a worthwhile show, though nothing else was really good enough to overcome the apathy in between those two things. 3.5 / 4.0
