Overall
I had a lot of fun watching Extreme Rules this year. If we are being honest, the show could be messy at times but even the most confusing of matches still had a lot going for them, and at a quick just about two and a half hours the show went by nicely and had a good pace to it. Of course this wouldn’t be a WWE pay per view without a good deal of controversy, and discourse from the “Internet Wrestling Community” (by the way I consider myself just as much a part of the IWC as anyone else, we are all allowed to have our own opinions and I hate using IWC as a blanket term for writing off unorthodox takes). Whether it was Dolph’s mystery stipulation, the coherency of the “swamp fight”, or Seth’s vomit following the eye for an eye match the hot takes were flying last night.
One match that had everyone talking was the finish to Raw Women’s Title Match between Sasha Banks and Asuka. Now I’ll come right out and say it, I think the finish worked and is in service to the story that creative is trying to tell with Sasha and Asuka as well as Sasha and Bayley. Was there maybe too much going on in the last few moments of this match? Sure. Was it enough to invalidate the hard work and solid match that these two women put on prior to the end? No, of course not. If we really want to get into the creative reasons behind this choice it likely has to do with the fact that WWE wants to do Sasha vs. Bayley in front of fans and the only way to make that happen is to keep them from turning on each other for as long as possible. This story is a way to keep Bayley and Sasha as friends for the time being and keep giving us fresh stories. At the end of the day I’m glad that we get to see WWE making use of the some of the most talented women on their roster and this feud could be one of the best of the year if people are willing to see it through.
All of that being said, let’s look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of WWE Extreme Rules 2020.
The Good
- Kofi and Big E looked great in the tables match. I’m down for this feud to continue if it will light a fire under The New Day’s asses.
- Shinsuke and Cesaro really desere a run with the tag titles I really hope that they keep them until at least early fall.
- Nikki Cross is looking awesome and Bayley is really helping to make her look strong.
- Solid heel work and taunting from Bayley in her match against Nikki.
- Nikki going from one end of the ring to the other under the ring was great!
- The finish with Sasha letting Bayley use the ring to get a cheap shot on Nikki. It’s a great heel move for Bayley and I really hope they keep pushing Nikki even if she doesn’t have a real shot at the title at the moment.
- Whoever told Bray that he should clown on the karaoke showdown deserves a raise.
- The eye for an eye match was not cinematic and it was brutal.
- Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about Rey losing his already bad eye. Creative deserves a pat on the back for finding a way to keep Rey able to perform and have Seth win.
- The videos hyping up the swamp fight have all been pretty good.
- Sasha and Asuka are showing us some awesome technical wrestling before getting to the fun high spots. Just shows how talented they are!
- Asuka and Sasha have both been delivering week after week! They had a super fun match.
- Bayley stealing the “win” for Sasha might be intriguing enough to get people to tune into Raw.
- Drew did a solid job of making Dolph look strong. It wasn’t that hard to do considering the stipulation but I appreciate the effort.
- Using Bray’s old theme just added an extra element of fun to the swamp fight.
- Someone getting set on fire is always campy fun.
- Using Alexa Bliss in the Sister Abigail outfit. It shows consistency between the Firefly Funhouse Match and the Swamp Fight. Bray is willing to use people’s pasts against them to get in their heads. Braun doesn’t have quite the amount of history that John Cena does but this was a clever move.
- Seeing the Fiend at the end after that false victory for Braun. I can’t wait to see this through to SummerSlam!
The Bad
- The tables match was way too short. Especially if they knew they weren’t going to have a US title match. They could’ve easily added an extra five or so minutes to it.
- I really thought there’d be a bit more blood in the eye for an eye match. Especially considering it was essentially an extreme rules match with a specific match end scenario.
- Sasha slip on the ropes looked like it was real. I hope she’s ok that really could mess up your knee.
- The stipulation for Dolph and Drew is bad. It was too convoluted and honestly from the second Dolph explained the whole thing, they were fighting an uphill battle to make it watchable.
- The WWE title match is a mess and I was having trouble keeping track of it.
- It didn’t really seem like Braun in the swamp fight was the same monster they tried to show us on SmackDown. I was hoping we would see more of that, but we didn’t.
The Ugly
- Come just be honest with us and admit that Apollo Crews is quarantined cause either he or someone in his home got COVID. It’s not fun to say but it feels more forgivable than saying he “failed a pre match physical due to an injury from Bobby Lashley’s full nelson.”
- The fake eye ball looked pretty laughable. I mean at least it wasn’t cgi like everyone was worried about, but it was practically a ping pong ball with some fake blood on it.
- I didn’t love Seth barfing. I get what it did for his character but I think you can show that with just Seth’s reactions. Throwing up is like my least favorite thing.
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