Has it been a month already? It doesn't seem much has changed in WWE since Mania, but then again it has. Paige is now in WWE (yay). Cesaro is being pushed as a big deal by being associated by the manager of THE GUY THAT BEAT THE UNDERTAKERS STREAK and Kane is getting a title shot in 2014 and we got a HOLE IN THE RING OMG SOMEONE IS BEING DRAGGED TO HELL SPOT. Ugh. I can't. Well, prediction time is here anyways.
Pre-Show Wee-LC Match: El Torito vs Hornswoggle:
It's a shame El Torito doesn't just get to wrestle adults, he has the skill to make that entertaining and somewhat believable and Hornswoggle used to do it, so hopefully that's in the future. This might be legit the match I'm looking forward to the most for Extreme Rules, I have yet to decide wether that is good or bad. Regardless, I can't wait to see Hornswoggle get beaten to a pulp with a mini-ladder. The fact that this is a pre-show match has me worried on the level of violence they are gonna put into this match, but come on, it's MIDGET WRESTLING AND TLC, that's just about two of the best things ever all rolled into one match.
El Torito wins, because El Torito is the future and Hornswoggle is in 3.5MB.
Triple Threat: Rob Dam Van vs. Cesaro vs. Jack Swagger
Obviously a filler match intended to put over Cesaro. I have been thoroughly enjoying Paul Heyman vs. Zeb Colter, they should continue that feud for a while, but maybe replace Swagger with someone more interesting for Cesaro. The "debate" they did on Smackdown last week was awesome, from Paul Heyman filling minutes on end with saying Brock Lesnar beat Taker to Zeb losing his mind, it was ALL GREAT AND I NEED MORE OF IT! FOREVER! FOOOREEEVEEER! Regardless, match should be fine, Cesaro and Swagger should be able to get a decent match out of RVD. Obviously it would make no sense for
Cesaro to lose this match, he's going to the Main Event, the other two are lower midcard for life.
Handicap Match: R-Truth and Xavier Woods vs. Alexander Rusev
The only things I love about Rusev is Lana and his theme song. Todd Martin on F4W Live said it best when he said that Lana has both the least revealing outfit and the most sexy, I said damn! Lana is gonna be the breakout star out of this act mark my words, and she deserves it #TeamLana. Anyways, onto the match, team Black Jobbers got the upper hand over Rusev in the build to this match and that was the dumbest thing WWE has done in a month where a lot of dumb things were done. Rusev is a beast, Woods and Truth are jobbers, he should NOT EVER be beaten down by them. They can hit him, but he should laugh it off and kill them right away, but because this creative team sucks and can't think of anything but "guys beat down guy, sign match" build-up to a match, here we are.
Rusev murders these fools. Also, why was Xavier Woods called up to the main roster and given Brodus' theme song if they weren't ever going to do anything with him anyways? It can't just be "he has a phd", right?
Divas Championship: Paige(c) vs. Tamina
I love Paige. She is great and I like that she was the one to finally conquer AJ's title reign. Good on WWE for going that route. They have done a decent job at building up Paige as legitimate threat since then, but it would have been better if they actually gave her some promo time on Raw. There was a good interview segment on Smackdown, but it would have been better for Paige had it been on Raw. Regardless, I can see the crowd get behind her big once they put her in a big program. I don't think Tamina was the best choice for her first PPV match, they should have given that spot to Natalya. Tamina is very wooden in her in-ring work and is certainly among the lower tier due to botching way too much (natalyathroatsuperkick.gif) for my taste. On the other hand, Tamina is pushed as the strongest Diva in WWE right now and a clean decisive win over her in kayfabe is a pretty big deal. Of course there is no way this match ends without
Paige retaining with her submission and that's exactly how it should be. Build up that submission for the AJ feud and make the rubber match of that feud a submission match, should go over big if they play their cards right. On a sidenote, Del Rey has obviously been pushing all the women to come up with submission finishers, because she realises that makes more sense for these women than powermoves. I know people complain that Del Rey should be wrestling, but I think she chose the trainer position herself and by God, she is great at it. The level of increase in the workrate of all the women on the roster and esp. the ones in NXT is astounding. Not enough praise can be given to this woman.
Intercontinental Title: Big E(c) vs. Bad News Barrett
I love that they did a tournament for a title shot. For once WWE has remembered that titles are supposed to be a big deal and becoming the #1 contender to a title should not always be "beat title holder in non-title match and get title shot." Unfortunatly this didn't mean they could have Big E win all his matches going into the PPV, nope, that would have been too logical. So since there are so many lurkers of WrassleGAF and one of them is bound to be a WWE employee charged with scouring the internet for the opinions of the WWE Universe, once and for all: BOOK YOUR CHAMPIONS STRONG AT ALL TIMES AND MAKE #1 CONTENDERS LOOK STRONG BY BEATING OTHER PEOPLE TO EARN A TITLE SHOT. Do this and suddenly your titles will matter, your champions will matter and people will give a fuck about matches between two people for a title. As it is, I give zero shits about this match and I want Bad News Barrett to lose. Not because I don't want him to win a title and be a big deal, but because winning this belt means HE IS GOING TO BE LOSING ALL THE TIME and that is a bad thing. So yeah, fix that and we're golden. Regardless of what I want, Big E seems to be on the outs and BNB seems to be the hot thing right now, so
Barrett becomes the new IC Champ.
Steel Cage Match: Bray Wyatt vs. John Cena
I have no idea what to make of this. Certainly, Wyatt has benefitted greatly from this program. Despite John Cena's best effort to undermine Bray with silly promo's, Bray has stood his ground and gotten his gimmick over immensely by being in a high profile program. The whole crowd is in his hands and his gimmick is going to be going places for a while. Good on him, it's a shame they already went Bryan vs. Bray in January, because if they had done that angle now, with Bryan as champion and after being John Cena one on one that would have been a money feud that could have gone a long time. But alas, Bray needs to win this one, but with the way the angle has been done there's just no way they can end this feud without John Cena overcoming the odds and vindicating the children. So
John Cena wins
WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Daniel Bryan (c) vs. Kane
Ugh. This match. Bryan retains.
The Shield vs. Evolution
EVOLUTION IS A MYSTERY, TWO GUYS NOBODY EVER WANTED TO SEE. Batista is a terrible wrestler in 2014. Orton has been a boring wrestler for the better part of a decade now. Triple H is great. The Shield is amazing. If anyone is going to get a good match out of Evolution it will be Seth Rollins, truely the MVP of The Shield. Also quite impressed with his recent promo work. Ambrose is a better face than expected, his assault on Maddox was amazing, more of that Ambrose please. This will be the first main event match for The Shield on PPV I think and that is well deserved given how they are generally the best match on any PPV they're on (except for the squash at Mania I suppose), I am very happy they weren't broken up yet and get to continue to do this for a while. Still, the WWE will want to put over Reigns most in this match, so I expect him to pin Orton for the win. Shield beats Evolution.
After two years where Extreme Rules was much better than Mania, it was inevitable that streak was going to end sometime. With Mania 30 being one of the best ones in years and one of the best ones overall imo, that would have been a hard thing to do anyways. Bryan not having a decent program is understandable given his real life problems, so I'll give them a pass on doing Kane vs. Bryan. I can't give them a pass for doing a Rusev squash on PPV. I hated it when they did that for Ryback too, PPV's should not have squash or unanounced throwaway matches, ever! Cesaro should hopefully be moving up soon, I would pick him for the next feud with Bryan, but I'm not sure if they'll go that route just yet. Anyways, shouldn't be a great show by any means, but some matches should be entertaining enough, Extreme Rules 2014 feels like a filler PPV before kicking off proper new programs, so lets hope that starts on Monday.
