The internet seems to be generally underwhelmed by Extreme Rules, and I don’t understand why – I thought it was a good show, a nice rebound from a decidedly lackluster Wrestlemania. So, in an effort to correct this imbalance, I’ve decided that what the internet needs is my review of Extreme Rules. I’ve got a beverage, I’ve got some snacks, I’ve got Extreme Rules on the dish divver, and apparently I’ve got nothing better to do, so let’s do this.
The show opens with the WWE show opener, now safely sans-Hulk Hogan and sans-Ric Flair, followed by a video package hyping the show. I’m not sure how necessary this is, given that literally every single person watching at this point has either already bought the show or already gone out to a bar/restaurant to see the show, but WWE loves to get maximum use out of their video packages. I take the opportunity to enjoy some snacks.
Three minutes into the show we go inside the arena. HHH’s music hits but he doesn’t show. We then go backstage, where H and Sheamus brawl for a while, before Sheamus bashes H several times with a pipe. This angle was supposed to be done on Raw the previous Monday, but was derailed because Sheamus got stuck in Europe. I think it actually works better here, with H’s injury more proximate to the match. H is examined by trainers, and meanwhile ShoMiz comes out to the ring.
I’m a Miz fan. Ever since 2007 on ECW, he’s been entertaining as hell, and him with three belts is an amazing sight. Big Show with two belts looks like a normal man with one belt; Miz with three belts looks like most other wrestlers would look with eight belts. Miz says that they’re the greatest tag team in history, which was previously the gimmick of Jericho and Big Show, and also of Miz and Morrison, so it’s natural that Miz and Big Show make the claim. Miz puts over how Bret Hart is now obligated to announce live on Raw that they’re the greatest team in WWE history, another angle that got reshuffled because the roster got stuck in Europe.
Eventually Teddy Long comes out, and he and Miz go back and forth in a pretty good promo that would have been better if they hadn’t tried to talk over each other so much. Eventually we end up with ShoMiz facing a three-team gauntlet match – gauntlet match, that’s extreme! – where any team that beats them gets a tag-title shot on Raw the next night.
Wait a minute, a PPV match against the champions, for a No. 1 contender’s slot in a match on Raw? What is this, 1998? How’s this for a novel concept: If you beat the champions on PPV, you win the titles. Why not just have the gauntlet match be for the titles, or have the title match later in the night? Maybe this is another angle that got reshuffled and the gauntlet match was originally supposed to be on Raw last Monday, but the way this happened was just weird. Plus it completely telegraphed the ending – make the arrogant heel champs defend their titles in a gauntlet match and the result could go either way – maybe their arrogance is their undoing, maybe they connive and cheat and end up beating all comers and earning mega-heat from the crowd. But making the match for a No. 1 contender’s slot is basically a way of saying, “Go get a drink, the only thing you care about in the next fifteen minutes is the identity of Team #3.”
Team #1 is K-Kwik and Johnny Nitro. As usual, Backlash begins with a Wrestlemania rematch. This match is okay, but doesn’t last long. The match ends when Morrison refuses to release a headscissors on Big Show while hanging outside the ring and gets disqualified. Yes, the first match at Extreme Rules ends with a DQ.
Team #2 is MVP and Mark Henry. Henry, after a Decade of Dullness, finally blossomed as ECW Champion, and seemed poised for big things when he moved to Raw last year. Then, WWE Creative did nothing with him for six months, before sticking him in a team with MVP, another person who a lot of people expected a lot from before Creative lost his number. Now they get to job to the Tag Team Champs every so often, sometimes on PPV.
This match had a good storyline, where Big Show is on the floor recovering from John Morrison’s hold, leaving Miz on his own to fight off two men. Miz takes a lot of punishment. Big Show eventually recovers, but is dumped outside on the floor again when he comes in to break up a pin, allowing MVP to hit his finisher on Miz. At this point, I have to assume the ref blows his spot, because rather than continue tending to a disabled Mark Henry, he runs over to the other competitors where he watches clear as day as Big Show reaches through the ropes and knocks out MVP. Rather than calling for another DQ, the ref shoos Big Show as if he never saw the punch, then counts the pinfall when Miz covers MVP. The announcers even try to cover for him, saying “I’m not sure the referee saw that.” Good match in terms of storytelling, marred by the ref’s fuckup on the ending.
So now Show has been choked out by Morrison, dumped outside again, and Miz was just hit with MVP’s finisher, and here to pick the bones are the Hart Dynasty, TJ Wilson and Harry Smith. Two months ago their main schtick was to talk about how they were so much better than losers like Bret Hart and Davey Boy Smith; now they’re accompanied to the ring by Bret Hart with nary a word said. Sometimes it’s weird to watch wrestling with a memory.
The NuHarts knock Big Show off the apron, hit a springboard Hart Attack on Miz, and they’re the No. 1 contenders. This “match” was so short that I actually did a full blow-by-blow recap, and I did it in one sentence. Exciting if you’ve been waiting months to see the NuHarts finally triumph over ShoMiz, otherwise meh.
Next we have a backstage segment where Todd Grisham reports that HHH is injured, and Sheamus looks threatening. Some good heel spinning by Sheamus, where he talks about “If HHH is too scared to fight me,” while holding the pipe he just used to incapacitate him.
Next match is Punk-Mysterio, our second Wrestlemania rematch of the night. This match was one of the reasons why I bought this show, and it doesn’t disappoint. Punk-Mysterio was the second-best match at Wrestlemania, it’s only real drawback being that it was far too short. This match fixes that. Punk and Mysterio have a very, very good match here. Ironically, it’s during the wide shot before Rey’s entrance where you can best see that the Extreme Rules stage is a giant straight-edge X symbol.
Just as the bell is ringing, we get one of my favorite parts of the show. Michael Cole mentions how the wrestlers were stuck in Europe as a segue to thanking fans who bought the show in Europe. He says “They’re watching all over Europe tonight in places like the United Kingdom on Sky Sports, Canada, uh, of course Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, uh, all the other places around the world here tonight watching Extreme Rules, live.” So to recap, here’s Michael Cole’s list of places all over Europe:
- The United Kingdom
- Canada
- Uh
- Of course, Australia
- New Zealand
- Fiji
- Uh
- All the other places around the world
Michael Cole, thankfully not a geography teacher.
The only “extreme” stipulation here is that if Punk loses, he gets his head shaved. Punk and Mysterio trade short control segments, while Matt Striker tries to explain/sell Straight Edge to Cole and King. “It makes you feel wonderful when you’re pure, Jerry.” Punk’s facial expressions and body language as a heel are just awesome. His frustration whenever Mysterio kicks out, his selling of Mysterio’s offense, are incredible. About half-way through the match, Serena and Fake Kane interfere one time too many, and they get ejected from ringside. Finally, Mysterio hits a 619, but before he can get off the apron he is assaulted by a hooded Straight-Edge Society member from under the ring. Punk hits the GTS on an insensate Mysterio and gets the win.
There are conflicting reports as to the identity of the hooded Straight-Edge Society member, who reappeared on both Raw and Smackdown this week. Early reports, from people familiar with WWE storylines and plans said it was Joey Mercury, who has long been rumored to rejoin WWE as a part of the SES storyline. Later reports, from people in attendance at Extreme Rules who actually saw the guy, say it was FCW champion Alex Riley. Joey Mercury later made his re-debut in WWE in a dark match before this week’s Smackdown taping.
After an ad for Raw the next night and a shot of National Guard servicemembers in attendance, we move on to the Crime Time break-up match, Shad Gaspard vs. JTG in a strap match. I had no expectations for this match, as I’m not sure there was ever a Crime Time match I was a big fan of, but this was surprisingly good. Relatively short, but this was a pretty full show, and when you’ve got Punk-Mysterio, Edge-Jericho, Cena-Batista, another world title match, and a HHH match on the card, not to mention Randy Orton’s entrance and time to replay all those video packages before every match, Shad-JTG is not going to get a lot of time. If there was an Undertaker entrance to fit into the show, this match would have been bumped entirely.
Watching the match for a second time, the crowd is totally dead, they couldn’t care less, but I still find the match entertaining. There’s some vicious beating from Shad, and some fun use of the strap by both men. It’s not a five-star classic, but it’s better than any previous match I can remember involving either of there two.
Shad comes out first, wearing tights, which looks weird at first. JTG comes out next, and he kept the gimmick in the split-up. Shad I guess got the time-share in the Hamptons. Toward the beginning of the match, Matt Striker asks King about the strategy of a strap match, based on his years of experience in every type of match, and King doesn’t know how to respond.
JTG wins by secretly touching three turnbuckles behind Shad’s back, then hitting his finisher before Shad can touch the fourth. Not the most imaginative ending, but how many ways are there to touch four turnbuckles?
Up next is an ad for the KFC Double Down, which I paid PPV money to watch. In case anyone is wondering, the Double Down isn’t very good. Next, Todd Grisham says HHH has nerve damage, and won’t be able to fight Sheamus.
The next match is Randy Orton challenging World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger in an extreme rules match. First we need a five-minute video package to explain why we should care about this match, as if “Randy Orton challenging World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger” didn’t already accomplish that.
Matt Striker mentions on commentary that Randy Orton has had six world title reigns in his career so far. That’s the number that Steve Austin had in his entire career. Cole mentions that “everyone who’s ever cashed in Money in the Bank” has done so against an incapacitated opponent, confirming that TNA champion Rob Van Dam no longer exists in history. Sometimes it’s weird watching wrestling with a memory.
This match is fairly slow and plodding for a while, typical of an Orton match. Shortly after it starts to pick up a bit, Swagger takes a pair of headshots from a garbage can that are frankly hard to watch. I just saw Jack Swagger lose about 50 IQ points, while Striker excitedly yells, “Ooooohhhhh, brain pudding!” If in 10 or 20 or 30 years Jack Swagger can’t speak straight, or is in a wheelchair, or has Parkinson’s symptoms, or goes crazy and kills his family and texts his neighbor that the dogs are in the enclosed pool area before hanging himself from a weight machine, I’m going to remember this match. Those headshots are that brutal.
Orton jobs clean to Swagger after a gutwrench powerbomb, but gives him an RKO after the match. Sheamus comes out while Orton is making his way up the ramp, as if he was going to confront Orton over how he jobbed clean to Swagger but didn’t do that for Sheamus at the Royal Rumble. Instead Sheamus goes to the ring and demands that either HHH come out to fight him or the ref declare him the winner by forfeit. Backstage, Todd Grisham tells us that HHH will not be able to compete tonight, but is interrupted by H leaving the trainer’s room on his way to the ring to compete. Shocking, I know.
The storyline for our third Wrestlemania rematch of the night is that H has “nerve damage” in his left arm, which means that he holds that arm still, whenever he’s not using it like normal. The announcers can’t decide whether the nerve damage is causing HHH great pain, or numbness. H has no problem lifting Sheamus for a spinebuster, but then can’t lift him for a pedigree.
This match is a street fight, which is totally different from the previous match, which was extreme rules. I personally think it would have been better as a no holds barred match, or maybe just no disqualification.
Sheamus controls most of the match, taking advantage of H’s injury, and eventually kicks him in the head so much that H can’t fight back and Sheamus gets the pin. There is very little back-and-forth as H sells the injury. The match never really gets into a rhythm – whenever Sheamus beats on HHH, he steps back to admire his work, and whenever H beats on Sheamus, he stops to sell the injury. Very slow, very methodical. Not exactly boring, but neither is it entertaining. Maybe a big HHH fan would hang on his comeback segments and get sucked into the storyline of the match, but it left me cold.
After the match, trainers come put to help HHH to the back, and just when I was thinking, “Come on, Sheamus has to come back out and kick him again before the get to the back!” Sheamus came back out and kicked him again. Supposedly H is going to be off TV for a while now.
After about a hundred replays of that last kick to the head; a segment of trainers loading H onto a stretcher that lasts longer than any of the tag matches that opened the show; an ad for Judgement Day, which is now called Over the Limit; a plug for the band; and a backstage interview with Edge, it’s now time for Beth Phoenix vs. Michelle McCool in an Extreme Makeover Match for the Women’s Championship. An “Extreme Makeover” match means there’s a table of cosmetics at ringside. The only real reaction I have to this match is that I’m disappointed that Mickie James was released.
This match is pretty standard “garbage wrestling,” with the competitors hitting each other with weapons rather than trying to wrestle. In this case the weapons include a broom, a mop and bucket, ironing boards, and the aforementioned table of cosmetics. And that phrase “rather than trying to wrestle” makes it at least marginally better than most Michelle McCool matches. In fact, of all the matches at Extreme Rules, this is the one with the most weapons use. It’s basically weapons, weapons, weapons, weapons, Beth Phoenix reverses the Styles clash into her front slam, pin.
Next up, after an ad for the Wrestlemania DVD and a backstage interview with Chris Jericho, is the Edge-Jericho cage match, the fourth Wrestlemania rematch of the night. Watching this match live, I was bored to tears. It was slow, plodding, uneventful, and unending – it seemed to go on forever. Watching it a second time, early on the story is good – Jericho refuses to enter the cage until Edge beats him up outside and throws him in, then Jericho tries to climb up over the top whenever Edge isn’t holding him down. But after a couple of escape attempts, we get to the slow, plodding part. Edge hits Jericho, then both men sell for a minute. Then Jericho hits Edge, followed by both men selling. It’s supposed to raise tension, but instead it just bores me. They haven’t done enough to get me emotionally invested in this match before skipping right to the both-men-play-dead part. Also, the announcers keep trying to put over Edge’s achilles injury, but after the H match it just feels old.
At one point, after refusing to enter the cage, after trying to climb out four or five times, just a minute after trying to claw and scratch and squirm his way through the door, Jericho incapacitates Edge and actually leaves the cage through the door. He walks down the steps, but before actually stepping off the steps onto the floor he decides to go back into the cage and beat on Edge some more, which is so completely opposite from the entire psychology of everything Jericho has been doing up until that point that it turns the whole thing into kind of a farce. Two minutes later he’s back to trying his damnedest to escape.
Just when you think the match is going to pick up a bit with Edge’s comeback segment, it turns into a long drawn out Edge-tortures-Jericho segment, where Edge hits Jericho in the leg and then taunts him for two minutes before hitting him again. Finally Edge hits a spear and this match mercifully ends.
Don’t try this at home, watch the draft tomorrow, hey we’re in Baltimore, Cole plugs Over the Limit, and a video package replay cause apparently they have time to kill?, and it’s time for the main event, our fifth and final Wrestlemania rematch of the night, Cena-Batista Last Man Standing. This I thought was a great match, the best of the night. One of the better LMS matches I remember.
At the start, it takes until after the entrances and ring introductions and opening bell before the crowd remembers they’re not supposed to like Cena, so they chant “Cena sucks,” for about 15 seconds. It’s almost funny.
Cole mentions early on that Batista is a six-time world champion, and Cena is a nine-time world champion. Steve Austin was a six-time world champion in his career, and The Rock was a nine-time world champion. Cena and Batista are now the equals of the biggest stars of the Attitude Era, at least in terms of title reigns, and Cena at least seems set to far surpass them. As mentioned before, Randy Orton is also a six-time champion, with many more to come. Chris Jericho is also a six-time champion. Edge is a nine-time champion. And of course there’s HHH, the thirteen-time champion. That’s three Steve Austins, two Rocks, and a Hulk Hogan, all still adding to their lists of titles.
This match is a bit slow to start due to the match type – there’s a lot of Batista waiting while the referee counts, which at least makes more sense than the waiting for no reason in other matches. It doesn’t feel as slow as Edge-Jericho because at least there’s something happening, the referee’s counting. After a few minutes they get into more of an even back-and-forth fight, and then they go for some weapons. One guy lets out a single lonely “holy shit” chant attempt when Batista Irish whips Cena through a barricade. At one point, Batista is dismantling the announce table, and Striker starts saying, “This is the Batista I like! This intensity!” Batista stares for a moment, then throws a TV monitor at him.
At a certain point in the match, about the time of the F-U through the announce table I’d say, though possibly as early as the Irish-whip through the barricade, you think each move is the end, yet the competitors keep getting up. There’s a good four or five moves in a row that you think is the end, except the match just keeps going. Very well done by both men. The eventual ending has gotten a lot of flak, but I thought it showed ingenuity, and allowed the face to taunt his helpless opponent, which is always a good spot. It at least has the virtue of being unique. I just wish the tape hadn’t broken so much, the application ended up looking a bit clumsy.
All in all, a good to very good show. Match by match:
- ShoMiz vs R-Truth and John Morrison in one-third of a Gauntlet Match – Some decent action, but too short to be anything much.
- ShoMiz vs. Mark Henry and MVP in one-third of a Gauntlet Match – Good storyline, huge ref blunder, again very short.
- ShoMiz vs. The Hart Dynasty in one-third of a Gauntlet Match – Literally two moves.
- CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio in a Wrestling Match – Very good match, these two work very well together.
- Shad Gaspard vs. JTG in a Strap Match – Surprisingly good. Short, but entertaining.
- Randy Orton vs. Jack Swagger in an Extreme Rules Match – Slow to start, picks up towards the end, but my main takeaway from this match is, Jack Swagger, protect your head!
- HHH vs. Sheamus in a Street Fight – Kind of slow, the whole injury storyline didn’t work any better than it ever does, the main highlight is how many times HHH gets kicked in the head at the end.
- Beth Phoenix vs. Michelle McCool in an Extreme Makeover Match – Better than most Michelle McCool matches, but that’s not really saying much. Nothing to this match other than the weapons, but at least it’s something. With Mickie James out of work and Natalya not wrestling, WWE literally doesn’t have enough women who can wrestle to put together a one-on-one match. So we get this match, literally Beth Phoenix wrestling with a broomstick.
- Edge vs. Chris Jericho in a Steel Cage Match – Very slow, very long, intermittently nonsensical. My least favorite of the night.
- Cena vs. Batista in a Last Man Standing Match – Very very good, best match of the night. Good action, big spots, innovative ending.
All in all a good show, and a full show – eight matches, even counting the tag team gauntlet as one match, and the last match ended literally two minutes before the three-hour mark. I highly recommend seeing it if you can.
