WWE Extreme Rules 7/14/19 Blog

Jeeeez these things start earlier and earlier. Are 4 PM starts the norm now? They always catch me off guard. I dig Beth Phoenix's new haircut, though it feels like they're doing that thing where they make her look like Renee Young, as they made Michael Cole look like Todd Pettengill.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Finn Balor

ER: Feels like there will be people upset that these two are on the pre-show, in a title match no less, but these are not concerns that I share. I prefer when the pre-show matches are guys who typically wind up on 205 Live or Main Event, as it plays like a fun 8 minute try out match at that point and they usually deliver. This just feels like a couple of established guys slumming it. I'm pretty certain that every single strike Balor threw landed about 6" to the side of Nakamura. Pele kick? Somewhere over Shinsuke's shoulder. Kick from the apron? somewhere past Shinsuke's head. Balor's cut off double stomp looked good, and Nakamura's two finishing shots looked good (knee to the back of the head looked great and then kinshasa was a good follow up), but I didn't really expect them to change the title in such a vanilla match. This felt like the touring 6 minute match these two would have around the circuit, felt very going through the motions.

Tony Nese vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Early on we get a "Let's Go Gulak" chant which is an awesome surprise. If Gulak actually starts to get over the same way Bryan got over earlier in the decade, how great will that be?? This is kind of what anybody could have expected going in: Gulak looked great, Nese did not, but Nese tried some things that worked in a stupid risk taking way. Nese has that "hey Evan Karagias is getting better" vibe to him, but he doesn't actually have babyface charisma. He does things that some fans should find cool, but Gulak is the one getting the reactions here. YES, obviously this is being held right in Gulak's stomping grounds, but that isn't a guarantee to get a great reaction and he got them throughout. Nese did a wild moonsault to the floor, hitting Gulak who was tied up in the ropes over the apron; it didn't really work, but I like him going for stupid stuff. He also overshoots a 450 and slams those knees right into Gulak's ribs, throws him messily into the corner with a german suplex, basically the nastiest parts of Nese's attack were kind of accidents. Gulak threw great kicks, and I think his reactions are going to keep getting louder, and they'll eventually babyface him. Early in the match Gulak hit an awesome diving clothesline off the apron (hard to make diving clotheslines look good) and his folding powerbomb looked great and would make a fine finisher, but I love the old school style of his spinning back suplex. Gulak is here baby!

No Holds Barred: Shane McMahon/Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns/Undertaker

ER: Starting off the show with this one! And you know what? I thought it was awesome. I was hooked in throughout, feeling it the whole time. The NHB stip is mostly wasted as this was worked about as straight as you can work a tag match (until 12+ minutes in), but they worked a damn successful tag formula. The key was Shane actually treated the way Shane *should* be treated in the ring. Shane is never portrayed as an equal, he comes in with his stupid little punches, and then gets absolutely manhandled. That's what should be happening. Undertaker never once treated him seriously, which thank fucking god. Reigns was throwing big uppercuts to Shane, and Undertaker is full crazy old man. I gotta respect the guy. He got dropped his head by Goldberg not even a couple months ago and here he is, breaking out the greatest hits, dropping a big leg on the apron, throwing big boots, looking like The Undertaker. McIntyre hits a huge overhead belly to belly on Roman and he gets a cool showdown with Taker (McIntyre appeared to be taller than Taker at this point), but a lot of this was Roman and Taker working over Shane, and it was great. The turning point of the match was really well done, with Shane making a low bridge to send Roman bumping big over the top. Elias comes out to officially make use of the NHB and interfere, and we get two big Shane spots, putting Taker through an announce table with an elbow, then hitting the coast to coast in the ring. But I think those are the way Shane should be getting offense in, doing your long set up car crashes when you have two actual guys holding down your opponent. This was a smart way to set up Shane moments. The finish stretch is really well laid out, with Taker making his sit up comeback on Shane, but then DREW getting to pop up behind Taker. The camera clearly set up the shot, but it played as a great wrestling visual, something they should get video package use out of. I didn't see Roman's cut off spear coming (and the cameras didn't show it well at all), but I thought this wrapped up really cool. I wasn't expecting to be into this one going in, but I loved the formula and layout worked to perfection, thought it was fun bell to bell. And my god they said "Big Dog" literally a dozen times. Absurd.

The Revival vs. The Usos

ER: This was the match on the card I was most excited about, and they obviously had a good one. What was odd is that the crowd did not care at ALL. I wouldn't think the Taker appearance and match would kill them dead that easily, but it was eerily silent through most of this match. And this match should have gotten a great reaction! This was an exciting tag match! The Revival are a finely tuned machine, love how the set up their double teams, love their shtick, love their pace. They are good foils for Uso offense, scramble out of the way on superkicks and lean in when they need to, always good at stooging into place. We got a couple tandem Usos dives that sprawled out impressively, leading to a cool long section of Revival cutting off the ring. Dawson looked like he was having a ball the whole match, guy is so good. I kept waiting for people to get into it, but they couldn't care less. There weren't a ton of twists, but these teams match up so well you don't really need them, and I thought the finish was satisfying. This was classic tag wrestling, which has been getting great reactions for decades. No idea why the crowd would be so bored so soon. Watch this on mute and it would probably come off like a classic.

Cesaro vs. Aleister Black

ER: This was really damn cool and played like a really fun Big Mouth Loud undercard match. It got time but not too much, and saw Black slowly breaking down Cesaro with kicks to all parts of the body, throwing combos early in the match that set up other combos later in the match. The finish played directly into that with Black throwing a sharp kick to the inner thigh and then going for a high right kick, Cesaro leans in to block the high right and then gets his right temple dented in by Black Mass. Black kicked at shins and inner thighs throughout, and Cesaro was really good at selling cumulative damage in his legs, falling on a lift late in the match in a not overdone way. Cesaro still did plenty of cool Cesaro stuff, dug that big springing uppercut and snug cravate, loved the way he would try to counter Black's kicks, just a cool pairing. Black feels like a guy who could really get over if given the kind of exposure Cesaro got.

Nikki Cross/Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley

ER: I really don't get this kind of handicap match. Bayley doesn't have the kind of offense that can control two people, and nobody wants to see two people just cut off a ring by themselves. Of anything on the card, I am least excited for this. I can't imagine the crowd being won back with a handicap match, either. And this was about as lame as I was expecting. It wasn't long, but it felt too long. None of the spots where Bayley did tandem offense to Bliss/Cross looked good (at one point Bliss basically had to put herself in a headlock), and I couldn't get too into Bliss/Cross teeing off on Bayley because I still don't really understand the Bliss/Cross relationship. There were nice moments: Cross does the Finlay ring skirt trap well, and Bliss threw a nasty dropkick to Bayley while she was trapped in the skirt; Bliss's double knees to the stomach both landed hard (really stuck those moonsault knees), and Bliss hit hard on Bayley's knees doing the twisting moonsault. I just couldn't get into the result of this match. It wasn't going somewhere I was interested in seeing. My overall interested in the women's division has sunk like a rock in a lake these past few months.

Last Man Standing: Bobby Lashley vs. Braun Strowman

ER: We're in Philadelphia, and these guys set out to have a big ECW crowd brawl match, and it was better than a lot of ECW crowd brawling. Fans gave it some obligatory ECW chant (which certainly wasn't a guarantee given how quiet they've been) but two big dudes crashing through walls and taking prop bumps was enough to rouse them. They avoided the "walking and holding heads" kind of ECW brawl, and kept this more about big spills. Braun suplexed Lashley into a merch set up but not through a table, he just vertical suplexed him into a wall and let Lashley fall. Lashley speared him through the ring barricade, both fell over announce tables, they fell into concrete steps, a real nice brawl that could have been next level if they were allowed to bleed. We built to a huge moment where Lashley sprang up to beat a 10 count, leaped up and over the barricade to chase Braun, but then got tossed into the alt. language commentary pit. Lashley's bump into the pit was great, could have been a great capper to a cool match really. They wind up finish with some climbing up to a big mysterious crash pad location, with big comical black plastic gates and a big black box on the lower level that nobody noticed before. The Braun powerslam through it looks cool, and Braun crashes through the front of the box to emerge standing, but I thought it all felt too set up and phony to be effective. Braun sidestepping Lashley into the pit came off more organic.

Big E/Xavier Woods vs. Heavy Machinery vs. Daniel Bryan/Erick Rowan

ER: This was really fun, as you'd expect a match with these guys to be. Otis vs. Bryan is a pairing I really like, and I love how Otis and Tucker work together. The match is filled with cool spots: Rowan's big crossbody on the floor into Bryan's knee off the apron, Otis tossing Bryan into a Tucker belly to belly, Bryan sinking in the LeBell Lock and subsequently tying off all of E's limbs as he would reach for the ropes, E hits his best-in-wrestling standing splash and kills Bryan with the spear to the floor, Otis makes me laugh the whole time with his apron work, Tucker hits a wild plancha to the floor, Otis corgi leaps off the apron, tons of really great stuff. I didn't want to see New Day win the belts. I'm kind of sick of New Day constantly being in the title scene, really felt like this should have been Heavy Machinery's first title win. New Day don't need the belts, they'll be as over as they can possibly be just doing whatever they do. Of the three options, I would have much rather seen Bryan/Rowan retain, or HM win.

AJ Styles vs. Ricochet

ER: This did very little for me. Both guys do cool things, but it all felt pretty empty. Ricochet is obviously a freak athlete but doing silly things like a shooting star clothesline don't really help him. He's more interesting when he's throwing his whole body into attacks (and his springboard to the floor onto Gallows looked good), his big springboard shooting star looked good, but this whole thing was so dry. The middle rope Styles Clash was cool, and the interference while lame was actually well done (Anderson getting kicked from the apron into the ring was a cool moment), but this did next to nothing for me.

Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: God bless these men.

Samoa Joe vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: I thought Joe was really awesome here, bullying Kingston around the ring and throwing hard kicks to bully him into corners to attack with fists, then trip him to the ground with kicks. He had a legsweep to Kofi's shins that was so killer. Joe looked like enough of a killer that I immediately wanted this to be a dominant Joe victory. Kofi's reign just means I have to see more Kofi Kingston matches, and the prospect of more Joe matches is way more interesting. I thought Joe crushed Kofi here and this was my favorite Joe performance in some time. Kofi tries to get cute with him at one point and Joe hits a mean uranage. I wanted this to be one of those shocking beatings of a champ, for Joe to walk in and just steamroll Kofi and win the title. Something like that would make a rematch more interesting for me, Kofi going in completely unprepared for Joe, something like that. I thought Joe's beating was strong enough that it was going to make Kofi's inevitable comeback look a little silly, as I've never liked Kofi's offense and don't think it's something that looks great against a guy like Joe. Still, I thought this match delivered overall, just not quite what I wanted it to.

Baron Corbin/Lacey Evans vs. Seth Rollins/Becky Lynch

ER: This was mostly pretty dull, and filled with people I don't really care about. Lynch hasn't been interesting at all, really making her brief period as THE most interesting thing seem like a distant or false memory. First thing I notice her do here is miss a stomach kick by a foot, so she's not exactly inspiring me. It's just a bad sign when there are 4 people in the match and Baron Corbin is the one I like best. Lacey was probably the most interesting during the dull parts of the match, she had the most interesting personality at least. I didn't care about much of this, but the big table spot was genuinely spectacular. Becky just crushes Lacey with a senton/legdrop, Rollins blows up Corbin and a table with a long distance splash. But the finish was legitimately great, a super great finish to something I didn't care about: Baron Corbin absolutely kills Lynch with the end of days. It was really great within the context of the match, as they'd made a big deal the whole damn time about the women staying separate from the men. Corbin annihilates Lynch and it's the first interaction of the match, played so well. And with that, Rollins actually has the most interesting moment of the past calendar year. I thought him snapping and just wasting Corbin with kendo stick shots, chairshots, and three curb stomps was the most actual interesting character he's shown in god knows how long. A heel going too far and immediately being on the business end of a babyface's justified sadistic revenge. It's a great kind of 80s babyface comeback, with the dickhead heel suddenly backpedaling because the babyface was pushed too far. I wouldn't think Rollins could pull that off, but he did, and he did it well. Corbin gets good marks for making the curb stomps look good.

And then BROCK comes out and destroys Rollins! Brock as champ is SO MUCH MORE interesting to me so thank god. I'd much rather see people coming at Brock, Brock defending is something I like (I think more than most people), so hell yeah bring on the challengers to BROCK! I liked how the cash in was handled and do not care how it made Rollins look.

I thought this was a good show that went too damn long. 3 hours is fine for most PPV. 4 hours + a couple matches before that 4 hours is too much. Even if the wrestling is mostly good. But the show had good performances top to bottom. The Graveyard Dogs overdelivered, Revival had their good match, Cesaro/Black stood out as a cool style on this card, tag trios delivered, Braun and Lashley had a good brawl, and the final match ended strong. That's a good show! I just wished it were shorter.