WWE EXTREME RULES

Columbus, Ohio

LIV MORGAN vs. CARMELLA (7:52): AEW had a huge show at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens on Wednesday. That got most of the attention this week, so this show was kind of forgotten about. Because AEW beat RAW a few weeks ago in the 18-49 demographic, Vince supposedly decided to put the Randy Orton vs. Bobby Lashley title match on RAW instead of the PPV. Another reason was probably because RAW has to do something big every week to compete against Monday Night Football. Either way, Lashley won then Big E cashed in his Money in the Bank contract and won the title. This PPV would have been a lot better if that had happened tonight, but whatever, at least it made RAW more watchable than it's been in a long time. They're also having a Big E vs. Lashley title match on RAW tomorrow night. One of the good things in having AEW around is that the WWE has gotten a lot better. I was just reading my review of the last Extreme Rules show I reviewed back in 2019 and I ripped it apart and said the WWE is awful and everything. So this show was pretty good with a dumb ending but at least some good wrestling and the crowd was rowdy in spots. And the WWE is better than it was before AEW, so that's a positive. As for this match? It was forgettable. Liv Morgan is gorgeous but, like most of the WWE women's wrestlers, they seem to hire them more for their looks than their wrestling ability. They could just make these gorgeous, bad wrestlers be a manager or come out to support their man. Apparently Vince hates wrestlers having managers, though, even though Lashley and Reigns both have one. No wrestler comes out with a beauty at their side, though, do they? New Japan does that with Takahashi and Taichi. Rusev had Lana...but that was ages ago. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this match was. And don't even get me started on how this show was called Extreme Rules and yet only one match was a hardcore match. -No Stars-

THE NEW DAY vs. BOBBY LASHLEY, AJ STYLES & OMOS (18:15): Since they gave away Lashley's title match on RAW, they had nothing to do on this PPV for Lashley or Big E, the new champ. Orton and Riddle weren't even on this show. That was a mistake, as Riddle is the new, hot commodity that the fans love these days. This wasn't even an announced match, it just came out of nowhere. It was also just a RAW main event and had no business being on this show. At least it was entertaining. The Columbus crowd was pretty hot for a lot of this show which helped. I'm curious how long they'll push Big E and have him as champ. How long was Kofi's reign? He's just a mid card guy these days. Do people even remember that he was once the champ? **1/2

THE USO'S vs. THE STREET PROFITS (13:45): I usually enjoy the Uso's matches. They're a fun, exciting team to watch. This got fairly entertaining late but it didn't measure up to most of the Uso's matches. The problem is probably that The Street Profits aren't great wrestlers. They're okay. Their gimmick is kind of like AEW's Private Party; young, cool, partygoing dudes that do some high flying. Unfortunately, Private Party's high flying is awesome. The Street Profit's high flying is mediocre. You could tell this match wasn't that good because early on the crowd was bored and started chanting, "We want tables!" You can't really blame them. The show is called Extreme Rules. **

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. ALEXA BLISS (11:25): The problem with Alexa Bliss's new supernatural, evil girl gimmick is the fact that she doesn't just use her powers to win right away. That's not logical, like most of what the WWE does. Late in this match they worked hard and the crowd got into it, but this wasn't a great Charlotte match or anything. After the match, Charlotte ripped up Alexa's evil doll. Considering Bray Wyatt was fired and Alexa's whole gimmick was spawned from his gimmick...can we just give this whole supernatural, evil thing a rest? **

DAMIAN PRIEST vs. JEFF HARDY vs. SHEAMUS (13:25): This was the match of the night. It wasn't great or anything but there was a lot of action and some good near falls and the crowd really got into it. I was watching Jeff Hardy and, for whatever reason, thinking of the Hardy Boys vs. Edge & Christian ladder match on RAW I saw live in State College in the Fall of 2000. It's nuts that all four of those competitors are not only still around and wrestling 21 years later, but they're all still thriving. Edge is in the main event picture. Christian was in the main event of the last AEW PPV. Matt Hardy is the head of a heel group in AEW. And Jeff Hardy is in the best match of a WWE PPV, fighting for the U.S. title. Those four guys weren't that young in 2000, were they? I was 20 years old. They were older than that, right? Meaning they're all in their mid to late 40's and still going strong. But they were great then, and to a certain extent, still pretty great now. Priest retained the title, but the crowd really, really wanted Jeff to win. **1/2

BECKY LYNCH vs. BIANCA BELAIR (16:30): There's a reason that AEW is superior in pretty much every way to the WWE and it's because, at least so far, AEW hasn't done bullshit stuff like the ending to this match on a PPV. Sasha Banks came in to beat up Bianca Belair to cause a DQ to end the match. Yep, a frigging DQ, non-finish to the big, co-main event title match on a PPV. What horse shit. Only the WWE does dumb stuff like this. It doesn't help that Bianca and Becky's last match was 30 seconds long and also at a PPV. This was Becky's first long match in over a year (she had a baby...and now she looks super skinny, which is weird). She certainly didn't set the world on fire in this match, although I never recall her matches being that great, anyway. When she left, she was perhaps the WWE's biggest star. They gave her the old, 'Stone Cold' gimmick; anti-authority, a bad ass, a crowd favorite. It worked. Now though, she returned and wanted to be a heel. Why on Earth would you bring back your most popular star only to turn her heel? The mind fucking boggles with that decision. She probably wanted to do it because it's more fun to be a heel. So far it seems like a bad move considering most of the crowd still cheers for her or wants to. Sasha came out and beat both of them up. I don't think they ever said why Sasha was gone for a month. Because they haven't said anything, I'm assuming she had the Corona virus. This match was just okay until the awful ending. **

ROMAN REIGNS vs. THE DEMON "EXTREME RULES MATCH" (19:45): Finally we get to the supposed "extreme" rules! Well...they broke some tables, used a few chairs, and used a few Singapore canes. I guess that's "extreme." Finn Balor did his Demon gimmick here because he already lost to Reigns on Smackdown for the title as himself a few weeks ago. The announcers never even called him Finn Balor. They kept calling him The Demon. That got old and silly pretty quick. "The Demon ascends the top rope." "The Demon has a Singapore cane!" "The Demon kicked out!" Ugh. You know he's just Finn Balor in paint, right? Eventually they battled into the crowd where Reigns was put through a table. The interesting thing about this was that Reigns put on a face mask when he went into the crowd and then took it off when he got back. I guess because he's had Leukemia in the past? Well after awhile The Demon was set to win but The Uso's came out and pulled him out of the ring. The Demon fought back and put one of them through the announce table. It was at this point that the match turned into something terrible, silly, and horrifically bad. It was kind of like when The Fiend had matches with red lighting. Remember how bad those matches were? This match ended up being an over-booked mess. So Reigns speared The Demon through the ringside barrier. But suddenly the arena was filled with red lighting. Huh? A heart-beat sound echoed throughout the arena and The Demon was being resusicated to life. The Demon was alive! I guess Vince likes this idea of an undead, supernatural force...as The Undertaker and The Fiend did this schtick. The Demon put Reigns through a table. Then he put Reigns in the ring and climbed the ropes to deliver his top-rope Coup de Grace finisher. But the top rope broke, the lights came back on, and Finn Balor fell to the mat. Reigns pinned him. That was the end. What...the...fuck? How stupid was that shit? Who the hell came up with such a dumb ending? And why did the ropes break? Will we learn on Smackdown that Paul Heyman cut the ropes before the match or something absurd? What a terrible way to end a PPV. It's no wonder AEW is the hot, fun, cool promotion these days. Only the WWE would come up with a ridiculous, bad ending like this. And both this and the Becky/Belair match had bad endings. Ugh. And this show actually had some good wrestling beyond those bad moments. So disappointing. Should I even bring up the fact that the WWE's current biggest match, Lesnar vs. Reigns, will be happening in Saudi Arabia next month instead of, like, a big U.S. show like Survivor Series? Don't even get me started on how dumb the writers and execs of the WWE are. And you wonder why every wrestler is fleeing to AEW? **