WWE Extreme Rules 2014

Note: I talked about the PPV on the recent DTM-Cast, but for those who want a text version, here it is. Not up to snuff in formatting, but it's workable, I suppose.

I wanna talk about the recent WWE PPV... wait, they don't call them PPVs anymore, do they? They're called specials... well, anyway, I wanted to talk about the recent WWE "special" from last week... the so-called Extreme Rules event. By the way, that's pretty much the main thing I'm talking about here.

And with that, some of my random thoughts on the Extreme Rules event from last weekend.



Did not see the pre-show midget match. I honestly don't care about the pre-show midget match, so I'm not going to talk about it.

Opening bout; Cesaro defeated Rob Van Dam and Jack Swagger in a Triple Threat elimination match that harkened back to the time-honored ECW original, the Three-Way Dance. For what it's worth, this was a good opener. Nice pacing, nice bit of action. No real complaints, here. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tonight's pissbreak match came in the former of Alexander Rusev (now known simply as Rusev - because fucking WWE) taking on two guys who don't matter... other than they're black... gee, I wonder if TNA will start putting together a black equivalent of Evolution on their show just to counter-program a show that doesn't care about them... What? It's pro-wrestling, it's always insensitive and offensive!

Bad News Barrett defeated Big E Langston... I refuse to simply call him Big E... to win the Intercontinental title. You know what? Good for Barrett, he deserves to carry a title around for a while. And that is certainly a bit of good news for a guy who had the potential to be a major player and hopefully, he'll get a chance to prove his worth. Quite honestly, I felt he should've been a major player already, and probably would've been if it weren't for certain things, but I'm liking his current gimmick. He's a solid performer and I'm happy he got the title.

The Shield defeated Evolution in a 6-man tag team match. Match of the night, without question. This was a fun little match that resembled an old-school Bingo Hall Classic fit within the PG-13 mold. There was lots of action, lots of brawling in the crowd, which you don't get a whole lot of these days, and once again, Batista goes down for the count with a Roman Reigns spear... and I'm glad that I didn't jump on  the bandwagon of pissing on big Dave for supposedly not wanting to job to Daniel Bryan Danielson at the next PPV. Apparently, that was a lie concocted and fed to the masses by WWE to cover up the fact that the reason for Batista's upcoming absense from television is more due to broken agreements and broken promises and... well, I had to doubt that story because if he didn't want to do business with DBD, I don't think he would've tapped out at Mania. I'd like to think that Batista is smart enough to know that he's not the same guy he was four, five years ago and that he's a little wiser in the role he should be playing this time around... whatever that may be.

To say that Bray Wyatt beat John Cena in the cage match is a bit of a stretch, because really, the kid did all the work. Look, as amusing as the match was and as good of a story as this was, with Cena being surrounded and cockblocked every time he would try to escape, it was a nice bit of story there that's been done countless times before, but it works for this kind of match, but... WWE has a tendency to depict their stories in an ass-backwards kind of way. From my vantage point, Wyatt should have won at Wrestlemania in my mind, and then here, you'd have your usual cage match as it happened here and Cena just walks away. But no... they have Cena triumph at Mania and they have Bray pull out stupid children tricks out of Letterman to distract Cena here... I'm sure it could've been a neat little story... but nobody here is capable of telling that story. I'm still not quite sold on Wyatt, I think Cena's character is becoming intolerable, and the thing with the kids is pretty fucking stupid.

Pale Paige defeats Tamina Snuka to retain the Divas title. I was taking a piss during this match... yeah, people are riding high on Paige for some reason... and I'm not buying it... Sorry.

And finally, YOUR WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan Danielson defeated Kane to retain the title in a match that featured backstage assaults, one flaming table, and a forklift. Bryan certainly tried his best here and even Kane exudes his usual effort. The end result is a main event match that isn't quite good on a technical level, but you know what? This is sort of a guilty pleasure for me; it harkens back to an old-school Attitude Era main event where it was all garbage wrestling all over the place. They sort of telegraphed the big table spot when you had guys lined up with fire extinguishers and then when Kane went through the table, they all come in, blowing white fumes all over the place. This is comedy gold, but before it's too ridiculous, the match is over. And apparently, we're getting a rematch. Presumably a Buried Alive match... because those matches are always fun... said nobody ever.

And that was Extreme Rules. I thought it was a pretty good show for what it was and follows a tradition of the Wrestlemania follow-up show being an excellent showing. This one had some solid stuff, one great match, and was quite a bit of fun for what it was.