WWE Extreme Rules 2018

[sek69]

WCW used to do this all the time, most of the matches on their PPVs were really good, but the top couple matches when they were bad were often horrendously bad. Thus a lot of people left WCW shows thinking they sucked despite most of the show being excellent.

[TheDuke]

Almost all the matches had the heel win. Some of the matches, like Lashley vs Roman, it wasn't clear who the face and heel was supposed to be. Rusev is supposed to be a heel but is cheered by a very vocal section of the crowd so it is not as happy a moment when AJ beats him. There has been like 2 steel cage matches this year where the face lost in a way that makes him look like an idiot for losing so the fans don't feel they can get behind them (Roman and Brock in Saudi Arabia is the other one). WWE has seemed to have been the hottest when they had a strong Babyface who refused to take crap from the heels and would just beat people up. I feel like Bruno, Hogan, and Austin all kind of had this in common. The heels would try to screw the face around, but the fans always knew in the end that the Mega Face would punish the opponent and show them who's boss. 

This is what Roman Reigns should have been, but they really screwed it up. They gave him cute catchphrases, they had Seth Rollins go over in that big Wrestlemania match with Brock, and they booked him against heels nobody really wanted to see him fight instead of building up opponents that the fans would really hate and want to see get beaten up.

I kind of think Ronda Rousey may actually end up being that kind of star for them. I hope if they fans really get behind her they would be willing to make her matches the true main events of those cards. I also hope they don't derail her booking by thinking she has to "pay her dues" or whatever by losing a lot, or giving her weird character traits beyond just being an ass kicker.

[WingedEagle]

6 hours ago, Loss said:

To be clear, I'm not saying "WWE fans are impossible to please" and I'm definitely not saying Dave's ratings aren't subjective. I'm just saying that a show where the individual parts broken up like that don't add up to a consensus thumbs up is atypical. I'm trying to get at why -- not make value judgments -- because I find it interesting.

If I rated four matches on this show at 3 stars or better, including the main event, it'd have been a thumbs up in my book as well (perhaps in the middle, depending upon the booking?).  But I certainly didn't see it that way and had only 2 matches at that level.  Perhaps I'm too demanding, or perhaps Dave is more generous in certain regards.  It seems as though ratings in the Observer in recent years have become more tied to pace and frequency of highspots.  For up/down purposes, my sense is fans still give more credence to booking at PPVs than TV or individual matches, even in the Network era.

[SomethingSavage]

It was a lame duck show. Everything felt irrelevant, even more so than usual. And that's saying something.

On a the smaller, month-to-month level, that was the issue for this event.

On the larger, year-to-year scale, it's been them educating their audience that wins & losses don't matter.

You can't spend years cultivating an environment where your outcomes don't matter & nothing is consistently canonized - then act all bewildered or upset when your audience reacts accordingly.