Y2J Getting A Back Full Of Thumbtacks and Seth Rollins Returning Highlighted a Pretty Good Extreme Rules
Sometimes wrestling can be bad. So bad to the point that I stop watching. Wrestlemania did that to me. What a gigantic waste of time and money going to Mania was. After my mini hiatus, I gave last night’s Extreme Rules PPV a shot and was rewarded with a decently entertaining and well wrestled show, highlighted by Chris Jericho getting a body full of thumbtacks, the Fatal Four Way for the IC Championship, and Seth Rollins returning after the main event and giving Roman Reigns a pedigree.
Jericho and Ambrose should have been able to put on a good match, but it was messy, boring, and uninteresting, while going on for too long. The match wasn’t very good for the first 2o minutes, but once the bag of tacks was spilled on the floor, a dynamic the match was missing was added which made it 100x more interesting. The “who will take a bump onto the tacks” drama brought the crowd back into it, which ended with Jericho painfully landing on them. I don’t know how much they doctor these tacks or what, but it did not look pleasant, or Jericho is the best actor in the world.
Before the let-down which was the Jericho vs Ambrose match was the best match of the night, the Fatal 4 Way for the Intercontinental Championship. The work Miz, Owens, Cesaro, and Zayn did should be watched and studied by every other wrestler in the company. Not only was the wrestling itself great, but the in-ring storytelling and the way the match built on itself where every wrestler played an important role in the telling of the match was second to none. You could show a non-wrestling fan that match and they would be drawn in to how well the story unfolded during the match. When matches are executed to perfection like that is what makes wrestling great. Unfortunately we just don’t see it enough anymore, but those 4, particularly Cesaro, deserve a standing ovation for the work they put in last night.
Quick shout out to Xavier Woods, who pulled out the Hadouken just for fun last night.
He cut a promo inspiring girls to slide nudes into his DMs before it. All in all a good night for Xavier.
And finally, the main event. AJ Styles was met with a huge pop, while Roman Reigns was booed out of the building and met with “Roman Sucks” chants all night. To Roman’s credit, he put on what was probably his best single’s match of his career with AJ. And it wasn’t just AJ carrying him. Was actually impressed with Reigns’ effort last night. Styles took some rough looking spots, including breaking through not 1, but 2 announce tables. Super Reigns kicked out of two Styles Clashes which of course is bullshit and makes AJ look super weak, especially because he took the pin after one spear (albeit big spear) but it was still a great showing by AJ.
After the match though, brought the return of Crossfit Jesus himself, Seth Rollins.
After tearing everything in his knees last year, Rollins returned last night, seemingly as a face, to a huge pop from the crowd. I don’t know if this means Reigns is full heel or what their plans are, but obviously having Seth back is great news. It also sets up all sorts of possibilities for next month’s MITB. Is he going to get his title shot immediately? Will they slow burn it to SummerSlam? Will Rollins even beat Reigns at all if he does get the shot? Lots of questions like this is good for WWE, and I think everyone is glad Rollins is back in the picture.
I probably won’t watch all 3 hours of Raw tonight because they still can’t fill 3 hours of good, quality Raw week after week, and I can’t sit there like a chump watching a bad TV show week after week anymore, but last night was a step in the right direction for this roller coaster of a company. The highs are so high, but boy the lows are so low. Overall though, decent enough PPV, now, as I always say, let us hope they don’t screw it up.
PS: The announce team was all-time AWFUL last night. We don’t talk enough about just how bad the announce team is. Michael Cole I do believe could be a decent play by play guy if he wasn’t being screamed at by Vince to call everything a wacky name or a nickname the entire time. But JBL has no place at that announce table. He screams nonsense for 3 straight hours and very little of it makes a lick of sense. He completely destroys the broadcast. Vince won’t ever fire him because Vince is so loyal, but they have to find a new place for him in the company that isn’t on TV ruining every match. And Saxton is just there, like a potted plant in the corner. The broadcast is such a big, big part of the viewer’s experience and WWE does nothing to make it pleasurable whatsoever. It’s such an easy fix by putting Mauro Ranallo and Corey Graves together as the A-team. Just another one of those things that shows Vince is completely clueless as to what he’s doing.