It’s the time of year when WWE gets extreme, but this time around we’re going into a horror movie apparently. With cinematic matches like The Wyatt Swamp match, an eye for an eye match, and a mystery stipulation from Dolph Ziggler, it will be a wild show. However, Asuka vs. Sasha Banks & Nikki Cross vs. Bayley will bring solid in ring action, and The New Day vs. Cesaro & Nakamura in a tables match will bring extreme chaos. How would it all pan out?
WWE SmackDown Tag Team Title Tables Match: The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) (c) vs. Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura
The tables match is not an easy stipulation to have a good match with. Anti-climatic finishes and a lack of drama will often play into this, but with the men involved in this one, it looked promising. All four men would give their all in a chaotic opening match. Kofi would fly around, Cesaro & Big would showcase their power, and Nakamura would launch huge strikes.
As far as tables matches go, you can do much worse. Cesaro & Nakamura become Smackdown Tag Team Champions after powerbombing Kofi Kingston off the top rope through not one, but two tables set up on the outside of the ring. This ends the eighth tag team championship reign of The New Day, but will it be long before their ninth?
3/5 (***)
WWE SmackDown Women’s Title Match: Bayley (c) vs. Nikki Cross
Bayley has held an iron-grip on the Smackdown Women’s Championship for 282 days. Nikki Cross wants to prove herself by ending this reign, but she’s in her own head. The story of this one is if Cross can focus for long enough to defeat Bayley.
Bayley would toy with Cross through the match, and try to have Cross break down. Cross would wrestle the match of her life and remain on the offensive for as long as possible, giving Bayley no time to breathe for the opening of the match. It was brawling vs. technical skills, with both pulling out plenty of tricks along the way.
However, Bayley would get control in the end and after some help from Sasha Banks, put Cross away with a facebuster. This was another example of just how good Bayley has been, this making a record seven defenses. Long live Bayley Dos Straps.
3.5/5 (*** 1/2)
WWE United States Title Match: Apollo Crews (c) vs. MVP
This match would end up not happening. Apollo Crews didn’t pass a pre-match physical due to a lingering injury caused by Bobby Lashley last month after this match with Shelton Benjamin. MVP would come down to the ring, and said this was a win by forfeit, and naming himself the true United States Champion.
We will likely see this match somewhere down the line, and we could consider MVP an interim United States Champion in the meantime. It needs to be noted that the ring announcer wouldn’t announce a forfeit or MVP as the champion, and the referee did not raise his hand. This is all in the head of MVP.
Eye For An Eye Match: Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins
Seth Rollins has messed with the Mysterio family for the last time, and while trying to end the career of Rey Mysterio was enough, putting his hands on Dominic Mysterio was too far. He already injured the eye of Mysterio once, and now it’s an eye for an eye match.
The only way to win is to extract the eye of your opponent. You read that right, someones losing an eye, Rollins even brought pliers to help him out. This is truly a match fitting of Extreme Rules. While these two could have a technical wrestling classic, this was a total brawl from the opening bell. Really, just an Extreme Rules match with a different win condition.
In the end, after a brutal battle from two of the best wrestlers in WWE, Rollins would shove the previously injured eye of Mysterio into the ring steps and after backing up for the stomp, Mysterio would have a very fake looking eyeball hanging out of his mask and this one was over. Rollins would throw up at what he did, and hopefully we won’t see this match type again.
2/5 (**)
WWE RAW Women’s Title Match: Asuka (c) vs. Sasha Banks
Sasha Banks & Asuka are two of the best women’s wrestlers in WWE today, and a big time title match from them was always going to be a classic. That is what we would get at Extreme Rules, but with Bayley at ringside, you know this wouldn’t be a clean wrestling match.
For the bulk of the match, we would get a wrestling classic from two of the best in the game. It was a fast paced array of strikes, submissions and beautiful counters, the match everyone wanted from these two. But, Bayley would get involved at the end, distracting the referee and bringing the Tag Team Championships in the match. Asuka would accidently hit the referee with green mist, and it would descend into madness as Bayley would steal the refs shirt and count the pinfall.
We can assume this is a no-contest match, as the bell only rang after Bayley threatened the bell keeper. It was a great match, but the finish was just plain messy. Ending like something from WCW in 2000 is something you never want to see, and it really drug this match down in the end.
3/5 (***)
WWE Title Match: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler
Drew McIntyre is one of the best WWE Champions in recent memory, but every great champion eventually has Dolph Ziggler slip into their business. Given the history of Ziggler & McIntyre as a former tag team, this is a fine matchup. McIntyre would gladly drop his former partner with a Claymore Kick. However, this isn’t a simple wrestling match like McIntyre has had up until this point.
Ziggler kept the stipulation of the match hidden until bell time, and this will give zero excuses when McIntyre kicks his head off. It would be an Extreme Rules match for Ziggler only, and McIntyre wouldn’t have the champion’s advantage at all. So Ziggler can use weapons or illegal tactics and it’s all allowed, while McIntyre can only do this like an ordinary match. If he gets DQ’d or counted out? Ziggler is WWE Champion.
This is the only way we could see McIntyre as an underdog, but he would still remain in control of Ziggler throughout, but it’d be hard to not use the weapons floating around. He’d be hit low, battered with steel chairs, put through a table, but still fight on. It would however only take a single Claymore to drop Ziggler for the win after a hard fought battle from underneath. Onto the next challenger.
3.25/5 (*** 1/4)
Wyatt Swamp Fight: Bray Wyatt vs. Braun Strowman
This was of course, a cinematic matchup from WWE, meaning it will not be getting a star rating, and the Universal Championship would not be on the line. However, it was always going to be something interesting, as it would reach into the origins of both Wyatt & Strowman, going back to the place that made them. The old Bray Wyatt is back, and could he win back one of his strongest followers?
Much like The Boneyard match or the Firefly Funhouse match, this was a tightly edited short film that needs to be seen to be believed. Wyatt would teleport around the swamp, faceless followers would attack, there would be cut-ins from the Firefly Funhouse, and Strowman would face his former self weilding a shovel.
He’d be knocked out, chained up in an eerie shack, all before he’d even encounter Wyatt again who would cut a classic monologue like promo and have a snake bite him. Alexa Bliss would appear as Sister Abigail to trick him, but Braun wouldn’t fall for these tricks, chokeslamming Wyatt into a boat which rode away into the night, only to come back empty.
Wyatt would appear behind him, try to drown him in the swamp. They’d fight on a wharf, and it felt like watching Freddy vs. Jason. Wyatt would be kicked off the wharf, Braun would claim it’s over and the end of the show graphic would appear before Wyatt popped back up to pull him in, showing it absolutely was not. After a struggle underwater, The Fiend would appear and end the show.
I guess Wyatt wins? This might have been the weirdest cinematic match yet, but it was entertaining if nothing else.
And That’s Extreme Rules
So Extreme Rules 2020 is now in the books. It was an odd show at best, filled with great performances but messy booking. Bayley vs. Nikki Cross & the Smackdown Tag Team Championship matches got things started great. The Eye For An Eye match was better than expected, Banks vs. Asuka just lacked a good finish, McIntyre vs. Ziggler was what it needed to be. Finally the Wyatt Swamp Fight was another memorable cinematic match. What was your favorite match or moment from Extreme Rules? Let us know what you think in the comment section down below.
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