WWE Extreme Rules 2021 - Less Extreme, More Rules

[Timbo Slice]

10 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

God returning to pro wrestling after almost a decade is HUGE.

Vince bringing back a HOFer after the HBK feud, unbelievable. 

[KawadaSmile]

Man this opener fucking kicked ass, but that's expected when you have the best groupd of all time, a great huge rookie, AJ Styles and Bobby Lashley.

[Boss Rock]

Well, that finish sure did suck didn't it?

[sek69]

While the main event is getting all the attention, and rightly so, lets not forget the other two highly promoted matches (the women) ended in a DQ and "pin after being hit/distracted by a doll" respectively. 

[sek69]

Also holy shit Hobbes just pointed out they debuted Seth's appearance on Austin's show (where he tells a story about being pissed at the HIAC with the red lights finish) after a show that had a red light finish as a main event.

[MoS]

I was actually hoping they would give Bliss the title because as shit as her gimmick and shtick are, she has done the best possible job of all of it and she is charismatic and likeable and fans go along with what she does, which is a great sign for a wrestler. I hate every second of it, but I cannot deny that she gets the big crowd reactions, except for the goofiest bits. She is certainly more over than Charlotte, who sucks the heat out of everyone she feuds with. But I forgot Alexa was wrestling in her hometown tonight, so not only did she have to be beaten, she also had to be humiliated as badly as possible in the Fiend-verse, which I guess is when your doll gets shattered.

[MoS]

Also wasn't the story for the Liv-Carmella match that Carmella was the big star getting Liv on a PPV? That  doesn't really hit when you are on the pre-show. 

[sek69]

48 minutes ago, MoS said:

But I forgot Alexa was wrestling in her hometown tonight, so not only did she have to be beaten, she also had to be humiliated as badly as possible in the Fiend-verse, which I guess is when your doll gets shattered.

The best part was how they went out of their way *not* to mention her hometown (which most times means they won't do what they usually do) and proceed to do the hometown humiliation anyway. 

Also WWE recently put a video on their YouTube page of the Top 10 times people got humiliated in their hometowns in case you were still under any false idea they aren't aware of what they are doing.  

[El-P]

I have no idea what the hell happened on this PPV reading this thread (apart from Bliss being jobbed out in her hometown), but it looks like a "so bad it's good" case. And it almost gives me the urge to check it out... 

[Dale Wolfe]

I watched the last 4 minutes of the roman/demon match earlier and i just don't understand how this stuff gets through even one discussion without someone saying its an embarrassingly bad idea, never mind makes it to a "ppv" or whatever these are now

Does the arena lighting technician give him superpowers? If you go for a piss when the lights are red in the arena are the toilets also a deadly demon zone or is it okay in there 

Its a shame for Roman really as i thought the spear through the barrier was a decent visual and he should have just won there and then 

Didnt watch the rest of the card.

[Stiva]

Watched the finish of the main and holy shit, how do they come up with this shit? Like, it wouldn’t even enter my mind to have Balor air-hump his way back to life when his music started and then had the ring ropes collapse to lead to a spear. Absolute insanity.

[KawadaSmile]

I mean I don't think that ending was good (although I am HOWLING at Roman looking to the skies, doing the sign of the cross), but are we surprised? They had a literal zombie wrestling in the late 80s, Papa Shango was making people bleed black goo and puke with MAGIC... This is very on par with what they have doing since ever and honestly, I don't mind it.

The faster we come to terms that they are dead set on having this blend of wrestling and B-rate CW channel series stories, the better. Even the Attitude Era had some wacky stuff, and it suited them.

Either way, the main event was great despite the ending tbh.

[Strummer]

How do we draw the line though on supernatural stuff happening and "unrealistic" wrestling style? I mean how can one be accepted and the latter abhorred. It's just picking and choosing

 

also two years ago everyone hated the super natural stuff with Fiend and Seth but this is okay because Roman was involved? ( not everyone's take obviously but I've seen some)

[Steenalized]

I don't really need a bright line rule to say "I enjoy pro wrestling, even if it doesn't look like a shoot fight, but whatever the hell that was is beyond dumb"

[KawadaSmile]

41 minutes ago, Strummer said:

How do we draw the line though on supernatural stuff happening and "unrealistic" wrestling style? I mean how can one be accepted and the latter abhorred. It's just picking and choosing

 

also two years ago everyone hated the super natural stuff with Fiend and Seth but this is okay because Roman was involved? ( not everyone's take obviously but I've seen some)

Care to expound on that, bubba?

 

Also regarding the Fiend/Seth feud, the biggest issue wasn't how Wyatt was a spooky clown with super powers. The issue was that the build to their match made then valiant babyface Rollins look like a coward, screaming for his life, and the Fiend character was basically impervious to pain.

Like, it was too early for Seth to lose the title, and too early for Bray to win it. They decided to book the match regardless, and had a HiaC match ending with a no-contest due to "EXTREME VIOLENCE". Bray basically no-sold a bazooka blast to the fucking face. There was an absurd fuck finish AND on top of an already annoying structure, they had the ring looking like the Virtual Boy.

As for Roman/Finn, it was worked normally until the last two minutes with the Deus ex machina finish. Bad finish, but the meat of the match was good. The main issue, to me, is that without yesterday's natural element, there's nearly nothing that makes Demon Balor different from Finn Balor. They wrestle nearly the exact same. This is a problem that was even more prevalent in NXT, where the Demon was overused.

[Strummer]

What I mean is like how do you draw the line between accepting Hornswoggle going through an invisible wall because it's entertainment/work  and then not accepting a smaller wrestler on top because it's unrealistic. How can you believe the former and dismiss the latter.

Seems like cognitive dissonance 

[El-P]

13 minutes ago, Strummer said:

Seems like cognitive dissonance 

It is.

I don't mind supernatural stuff, I don't even mind when it's done in a straight camp way (and I mean, I was eating up the LU stuff). The Alexa Bliss stuff is something I suspect a part of me would actually enjoy if the execution/production was not so WWE (watched a bunch of it on Youtube, so there goes the "social media numbers mean something" out of the window !)

[Strummer]

Wrestling inc reporting Alexa will be taking time off soon. A few months probably. Probably why they shot the angle last night. She's getting married soon as well

[strobogo]

I caught the show up Becky/Bianca and thought it was a pretty good show match wise. Finishes were weird all night, though. The DQ finish for Becky/Bianca sucked but at least was logical since Sasha never got her match with Bianca and you don't want Becky or Bianca to lose outright which would need even more of a bullshit finish if you want to keep things going to Survivor Series or the Rumble or even WM. Something like the ending of the triple threat being these series of super hot near falls by Jeff Hardy that the crowd buys into completely and then Priest wins with an ugly, slow school boy roll up on Sheamus that he just kind of grabbed and went into like they were out of time. Weird because Priest is both a face and also the largest man in the match, so it seemed weird to have him do the sneaky type finish you'd usually get from either a heel or an outsized face in that situation. 

 

And now having watch Reigns vs Balor....lmaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooooooooooo that ending. Divine intervention, Roman truly is the chosen one. The finish with the ropes was fine, the heartbeat and the mega kendo stick were dumber to me than the actual finish.

 

 

Anyway in ring show was pretty good beyond the finishes. Also pretty weird to have the first fully New Day match in a year and with Big E as champion literally thrown together on the pre show.

[KawadaSmile]

4 hours ago, Strummer said:

What I mean is like how do you draw the line between accepting Hornswoggle going through an invisible wall because it's entertainment/work  and then not accepting a smaller wrestler on top because it's unrealistic. How can you believe the former and dismiss the latter.

Seems like cognitive dissonance 

Hmmmm, that's a good point. 

I guess the problem is not what is presented per se, but how it is presented. Execution still is the key.

Say, Daniel Bryan kicking Sheamus' arse or Gable suplexing Corbin doesn't bother me as much as Adam Cole basically dominating Keith Lee with a headlock because the first two are able to convey the action in a way that simply looks better, be it through intensity or the feeling of struggle. I never really minded Rey Mysterio beating bigger opponents because he was able to be craftier in the way he did so.

Meanwhile, with cartoony stuff, one can also hold those spots and work to a higher standard. Would Taker work if he was not 100% into the character? Abaddon, someone who also has a spooky gimmick, would look ridiculous if she was half-assing it. 

 

Yesterday was more an example of how not to do gimmicky stuff. The whole Bray/Alexa angle is night and day.

[SirEdger]

3 hours ago, Strummer said:

Wrestling inc reporting Alexa will be taking time off soon. A few months probably. Probably why they shot the angle last night. She's getting married soon as well

If I'm not mistaken, she's getting married some time after Wrestlemania next spring. So if she's taking time off, it might be for some another reason.

However, I've yet to see any major dirtsheet pick up on this so while there might be some truth to that report, I would rather go for "a few weeks" than "a few months". We should have more indication on RAW tonight, I guess.

[strobogo]

The options for what happened in the main event:

 

1. Act of God. 

2. Shoddy craftsmanship from the WWE ring crew.

3. Someone was able to loosen the top turnbuckle. Presumably in this case all would be loosened just in case. This could be a member of The Bloodline, Paul E., someone tipped off in the ring crew, or someone unrelated out to get Balor.

4. The spirt of the Demon adds so much density to Balor's body that it broke the ropes.

 

 

I would like to believe the answer is 1 or 4.

[DMJ]

Just finished watching, some takeaways I haven't necessarily seen mentioned...

- The Usos/Street Profits match was good-not-great. Unfortunately, the positioning of the match immediately after a 6-man tag did it no favors and, though they did win over the live crowd, there were also audible chants for tables early on as the fans had just sat through a non-extreme tag team match featuring even bigger stars. To me, even just switching those two matches on the card would've been smart. Both matches could've stood to lose a few minutes too and the Usos double superkick and double splash at the end looked very sloppy and lazy as they barely made any contact.

- The Finn Balor/Roman Reigns match kinda reminded me of another match: Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 31.

Please let me indulge in some history here for context's sake. Prior to WM31, there was alot of anti-Roman sentiment among "smart" fans and many people were sickened about the foregone conclusion that he would go over clean and that Reigns would then take over as the de facto top babyface for years to come, essentially replacing Cena. Now, in hindsight, none of that happened and Seth Rollins cashed in his briefcase and so on and, internally, Vince and his yes men believed they had averted the disaster of having Reigns get booed by doing a swerve ending and cementing Rollins as the new top heel (who was also a "smart" fan darling, thus pleasing that portion of the audience).

But even a day after it happened, those same smart fans (who should've been over the moon that Reigns had failed) were posting about how it was actually the wrong decision. Why? Because the match was damn good and Reigns looked damn good in it. The idea that Reigns should've won isn't some 2021 hindsight misremembering either. Re-watch the match and judge for yourself. The live crowd wanted a clean ending and would've popped for Reigns. The Rollins cash-in gets a big reaction because cash-ins always do, but ultimately, they blew their moment. As we saw over the years to come, Reigns' subsequent and endless feud with Lesnar has never yielded another classic (in fact, their rematch at a WrestleMania a few years later was one of the worst matches of the decade).

Here, we had a similarly awesome match between Balor and Reigns. I'd go as far as to say that Reigns' performance here was the best work of this entire run - just the right amount of trash talk, so many great facial expressions, putting a mask on before he hopped the barricade (!), the friggin' SPEAR through the barricade spot. It was an unbelievable performance out of him. And then you have Balor, who looked valiant and heroic and like he might just be able to pull out the victory if he could manage to neutralize the Usos and land a second Coup De Gras.

And then they overbook the finish to the point it becomes WrestleCrap because, I'm guessing, they didn't have enough confidence in Balor to maintain his credibility just losing clean (or cleanish). Their attempt to protect Balor ended up making him look worse than actually just losing, which I think he could've survived if given a few weeks off and maybe quietly drafted to RAW.

Of course, moving him back to RAW now after losing in that way kinda makes that "quiet" part hard. It also doesn't help that RAW still has the lingering odor of of Bray Wyatt in the air, another guy with super powers that made little sense and only led to creative dead-ends. Besides, who would Balor even feud with on RAW?Even in kayfabe, wouldn't Balor's next target be the ring crew? Their shoddy work totally fucked him. 

When the WWE gets too cute, it really sucks the life out of a match to me. Balor/Reigns was like a gymnast who does an amazing routine and then instead of sticking the landing, they land face-first on the mat and flop around as the lights inexplicably turn red and music that sounds like the Trans Siberian Orchestra plays.

[strobogo]

No, Balor's next feud is with God

[fakeplastictrees]

WWE's lack of commitment is what really killed the finish of the main event. It's simple. If you want to be Sports Entertainment and do this nonsense, go all in. Music revives Demon,  Demon hits Reigns with the chair, Demon takes out Usos, Demon rolls Roman in the ring and hits his top rope finisher, rolls out and hits it from the mat, Demon hits his finisher from the top rope again. 1,2,3. Lights are still red, music still plays, and smoke fills the ring. Lights slowly come on and as the smoke clears we see the Demon has vanished. Roman and Usos get to their feet yell at Heyman, takes out the ref, WWE officials come down to the ring as The Bloodline takes apart the ring and surrounding area and go all Bret Hart 97 SS. It's simple. If you want to do it, then do it. If you want to get silly, make everyone involved look like geeks ,and kill a gimmick, then do what was done. Just absolutely silly.