EXTREME RULES TO LIVE BY…What Happened Last Night (Apr. 26th, 2015)

How’s it going, Enthusiasts!  Well, didn’t really know what to expect with Extreme Rules and I wasn’t disappointed but, I wasn’t exactly impressed either.  I would say that the content was equal to an evening of RAW and so I’m glad that April was made free for new subscribers so that we generally don’t feel like we want our money back.  To be honest, my guess is that they did this to account for all the patrons like myself who signed up late in March for WrestleMania and the 30-day period included Extreme Rules by default.  If you’re gonna give it away for free, might as well do so on your own terms. 

As many of you know, Daniel Bryan has been pulled from action due to injury.  To substitute, Neville got his first PPV shot with a match against Wade “Bad News” Barrett.  This was actually a fun way to start the show.  Barrett comes out and addresses the change of schedule.  Oy! I know you all came here, expecting to see a match against that goat of a wrestler, Daniel Bryan.  Well, I got some bad news for the lot of you.  I took that wanker out ‘cause he’s got no business holding the Intercontinental Championship.  Look!  He can’t even defend the bloody thing.  He’s like bloody glass!  No matter.  We got something for you all.  Don’t worry your pretty little heads.  That other wanker, Neville seems to have something to prove.  I’ll show him what it’s like to play in the Big Leagues.  Barrett gets into the ring and Neville comes out to a welcoming pop.  These 2 proceed to put on an awesome match that definitely got the crowd going and kept them that way going into the official start of the show.  I have to say that the Chicago crowd was a great one. They were boisterous right from the beginning, often drowning out the Announce Table during the pre-show.  Barrett and Neville kept them feisty with an exciting back and forth that I basically called right out the box.  Neville being the far bigger draw gets the win with a dazzling Red Arrow but not without some near falls and disruption. Nevertheless, a fine way to start.

The first match of the night is the Chicago Street Fight between Luke Harper and Dean Ambrose.  We all expect to see a brawl and a brawl we get.  Before Harper can even get into the ring, Ambrose rushes him on the ramp and the pummeling begins.  The 2 stagger backstage and it appears it’s gonna be “one of those” kind of matches.  Everything becomes a potential weapon and stage hands and crew try not to get involved.  The twist comes when Harper gets into a SUV and Ambrose, crazy as he is, dives in through the open passenger window.  Harper speeds off anyway and the street fight actually carries over into the street.  Personally, I think them spilling out a backstage exit would have been more appropriate and entertaining. It at least keeps them fighting.

In the meantime, we move on to Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler going toe-to-toe in the “Kiss Me Arse” Match.  As you can guess, the loser must kiss the winner's ass, literally.  So, naturally these 2 put up quite the fight.  It looked like Sheamus was going to take this pretty easily early on.  He was deliberately cruel to “Scrappy McScrapperton” dealing him hard blows and merciless throws.  Yet, Ziggler just doesn’t understand staying down.  He gets back up time and time again and throws whatever he’s got at Sheamus.  Yet to every offensive advance, Sheamus has an answer.  Famouser, denied! ZigZag, not today!  Towards the end, Sheamus goes for a good ol’fashioned suplex but Ziggler whips out one of his crafty counters and rolls Sheamus up for the surprise win.  Sheamus cannot believe this is happening.  He argues with the referee, trying to get a do-over but the referee isn’t having it.  As he sees it, Ziggler won fair and square and Sheamus has to get into position and kiss that arse.  Ziggler reminds us that this wasn’t his decision to do this in the first place.  Sheamus just lucked out.  Just be glad I wax, Ziggler adds (^_~) Sheamus sighs, and gets into position.  He looks set to plant a big smooch on Ziggler’s right butt-cheek but, Sheamus gets up and hits Ziggler below the belt.  He then deals him a Brogue Kick and proceeds to rub Ziggler’s face into his ass. A little “cheeky” this match was, yes but meh…that sort of thing goes in the WWE Universe.  It entertained enough.

To follow, we have the Tag Team Championship match of Kofi Kingston and Big E. Langston of the New Day up against Cesaro & Tyson Kidd.  This match, I believe, was the best one of the night.  I was very surprised.  Not because this match-up lacked talent.  I just didn’t expect it to be set-up to be all that entertaining but, it was a high-energy bout.  As I suspected, once Langston and Cesaro get into the ring, they prove better matched for each other as far as in-ring chemistry goes. The moment of note was when Langston launches himself at Cesaro and a fearless Cesaro catches him with relative ease and slams him on the mat. Very impressive.  No one drops the ball in this showdown and everyone gets to show off their bag of tricks.  This match is also very well-paced.  It doesn’t seem to lag or cause you to lose your interest. They keep us engaged through its entirety.  It’s hard to say who’s gonna take this one.  The cool moves and pointed execution devolves into chaos towards the end as both teams try to finish the other off.  Xavier Woods and Natalya cheerlead for their respective teams at ringside yet, Woods opts to implement a distraction and Natalya serves him up a slap for the interference and Kidd gives him a kick for good measure.  Langston continues the domino effect and knocks Kidd off the apron and Cesaro then tosses Langston out the ring.  Yet, Cesaro doesn’t notice that Kingston is the legal man at the moment and with his back turned, Kingston rolls Cesaro up, taking a handful of “manties” with him and the New Day are the new Tag Team champs in a bit of a shocker.  Sure things will change tonight at RAW but this was a turn of events that didn’t bother me.

But hold on, the story isn’t over!  As the New Day celebrate backstage, Harper and Ambrose return and spill out the SUV and continue their carnage.  Ambrose decides to congratulate the New Day with an elbow drop from the top of the SUV.  He and Harper then proceed to stumble and box back to the ring where they fill it full of “steel” chairs.  This is done so that they can suplex and powerbomb each other into oblivion upon them. Yet, it is Ambrose that lands the fatal blow, Dirty Deeds to Harper that leaves him victorious and the renowned, in-house street brawler.

This brings us to the US Championship rematch of John Cena vs. Rusev.  In my opinion, this match was kinda boring.  The ringposts are affixed with red and green lights, red for Rusev and green for Cena.  This helps us keep track of who’s touched how many posts.  It gets off to a quick start though with Rusev seeming to dominate and make quick work of Cena and the posts but as we all know, Cena is a fighter and he battles back to even the score.  Though they were strapped by the “Russian” chain, I don’t think they made as much use of it as they could have.  I was expecting there to be more maliciousness in this match and it came off more like a session of jump rope. There was a little drama though with Rusev ordering Lana out of the arena when she gets a little too chummy with the crowd.  If she’s not going to help him, he has no use for her.  Scolded, Lana takes her leave and the match continues.  Rusev manages to lock Cena in The Accolade but Cena has learned that the key to getting out of it is standing up.  Cena piggy-backs Rusev while staggering backward and dumps him into a turnbuckle.  This takes most of what Cena has left in the tank and Rusev takes advantage and starts to tag posts.  Cena musters up some strength and lands an Attitude Adjustment and gets his hands on 3 of the posts.  Score tied at 3, the men wage a tug-o-war with the chain.  Seeing how he only needs to hit one more post, Cena manages to pull Rusev into another Attitude Adjustment and slaps the last post to retain.

After that, we have the Divas Championship match with Naomi going at it against Nikki Bella.  I kinda liked Naomi’s new outfit and music.  The nod to Kanye West seems perfect for her new heel attitude.  I’d say most of us don’t like him.  Way to heel it up.  As for the match, it wasn’t bad.  Both ladies executed a believable back and forth but I wasn’t really raring to go on this match.  Definitely glad Naomi’s throwing down at a PPV but it goes down in RAW-ish fashion as Brie offers up Naomi a kick near the end to send her stumbling into Nikki who leads her into a Rack Attack for the win.

We look to the playbill and we see that it’s the match no one wants to see but, will sit through anyway with Roman Reigns and Big Show set to dance in a Last Man Standing Match.  Oi, you look at this on paper and you expect it to last forever as I alluded on the Twitters.  With Big Show the resident “giant” and Reigns seemingly bred to take hits, the question quickly becomes what’s it gonna take to put either one down for good?  Well, Big Show makes a statement early on that he would prefer that the final blow doesn’t involve a table.  He promptly smashes one to bits with his mighty fist to illustrate what he thinks of the notion.  He thoroughly roughs Reigns up as well, knocking him out of the air, beating him with a Kendo stick, tramples him you know, anything to keep him down.  Reigns returns the favor also.  He’s the first to bring out the "steel" chairs and though Big Show made it clear he wants no part of tables, Reigns Samoan Drops him through 1.  Big Show tags him back, though by Chokeslamming him through a few. As you could imagine, this turns into a mess of a match with busted tables, splintered Kendo sticks and bent chairs strewn about and around the ring.  Trying to put a bow on this match, Reigns starts going for Spears and takes Big Show and the Timekeeper booth down with one.  Big Show’s still standing, though and decides to move this to the Announce Table and the announcers, seeing how this was going to go, have long since taken themselves out of harm’s way.  He readies himself for another Chokeslam but Reigns slips out of his grasp and Spears Big Show through the Spanish Announce Table.  Those announcers have also gotten the hell out of Dodge.  To make sure he stays down, Reigns takes to the main Announce Table and upends it onto Big Show to pin him and finally get the countout.  This match was well-executed and definitely not the worst match of the night. I’d say that honor is a toss-up between the Divas and the Chain match.  It just suffered from lackluster booking.  There’s just about 0 interest for the match but it goes down in dramatic fashion and so, let us just hope that’ll be the last of that.

That leaves the main event with Seth Rollins and Randy Orton going for the title in a Steel Cage Match.  Though their match at WrestleMania was great, I found this match coming off a little flat.  I was not at all amped for the steel cage yet, I did like how the match started punk-assedly with Rollins immediately trying to climb out. He’s such a little shit.  These gentlemen do go at it, though and Orton is primed to beat Rollins’ ass.  The moments of note were a suplex Orton lands to Rollins from the top of the cage and he also executes a nice Powerslam in the ring off a Rollins rebound off the ropes.  There’s also some intrigue in this match.  Near the end, Rollins manages to daze Orton and makes for the cage door.  Dad (Kane) doing his “Guardian of the Gate” duty, opens it.  Rollins starts to walk out only to be halted by a BackBreaker Orton recovers enough to issue.  Orton then makes for the door but Dad decides Orton should probably stay in.  Orton goes, WTF! And argues with Dad, Dad doesn’t really hear him and though Rollins tries to make good for Team Authority, in an attempt to lay Orton out, he ends up kicking Dad instead.  Rollins and Orton then struggle to get out of the door first.  Dad slams the door shut, backing both men up and begins to disrobe.  Dad’s mad!  J&J Security try their best to keep Dad from blowing a gasket but his ears are already steaming.  Dad takes one in each hand and Chokeslams them.  He then looks to Rollins and looks set to serve him up a Chokeslam as well but gives it to Orton instead.  Rollins makes a break for the door but Dad decides not to leave Rollins out and Chokeslams him too.  The men right where he wants them, Dad drapes Rollins’ arm over Orton so that the referee can make the count and give Rollins the win.  Orton is defiant, though and kicks out.  Dad attempts to administer a Tombstone on Orton for his insubordination but Orton, no longer under the night’s stipulations, busts out his RKO.  Yet, Rollins jumps up and returns the favor to add insult to injury and spills out the cage door to retain.  This wasn’t a bad match but I was expecting a more exciting exchange.  The show of alternate moves like Orton’s use of Triple H’s Pedigree at one point definitely raised my eyebrow but, Extreme Rules came off very much like an extended episode of RAW, which makes me wonder how tonight’s episode will go.

Suppose we’ll see.

See You in a Bit,

-Nicole Alexis.