Surprisingly, neither WWE Champion AJ Styles against Rusev nor Roman Reigns against Bobby Lashley landed in the Main Event of Extreme Rules at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, but the official 30-minute Iron Man match between Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins. In a fireworks display, both men proved that their match of this spot on the card was absolutely worthy.
Winner: Andrade “Cien” Almas per Hammerlock DDT. The fact that Almas and SAnitY are comparatively lucky to have landed in the kickoff of a B-PPV less than three months after the roster shakeup underlines the complete failure of this year’s NXT call ups.
A completely insignificant victory over a completely insignificant jobber will not bring the ex-NXT champion any step forward. He is now in desperate need of serious fights against upper midcard faces like Jeff Hardy if Cien is to be built as the new Latino star in the future.
Winner: SAnitY after a Flying Elbow Drop by Eric Young against Kofi Kingston laid out on a table. Compared to Andra’s “Success”, he weighs considerably more against one of the most successful teams in WWE’s history, even though he was unfortunately somewhat wasted in the kick-off.
The match type was the perfect choice for SAnitY to live out their form of chaos and at the same time let it appear as a unit, and the stipulation did not weaken New Day too much. The pairing offers a lot of potential, especially in the constellation Killian Dain vs. Big E, which have the greatest single-star potential in their respective stables, and should be continued.
Winners and new Raw Tag Team Champions: The B-Team, after preventing the day finisher of the Champs and getting Bo Dallas Matt Hardy onto the mat in a slingshot. It actually happened, the “Best Team” won the title! What on the one hand is the crowning glory of a well-deserved push for two jobbers who, despite years of catastrophe bookings and humiliations in front of running cameras – if they were allowed to appear at all – have always hung themselves purely and noticeably improved, also shows the lack of plan of the bookings of Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt.
Since winning the title, her storyline has lost a lot of momentum and Wyatt’s traffic accident has not improved the situation either. Now you can give them a re-match and then restart the feud Matt vs. Bray, because winning the title again would not advance both teams. That this applies to Matt vs. Bray Reloaded may also be doubted.
Winner: Finn Balor per rollup as counter against End of Days. A short match ended in the most sensible way for both men, because Finn needed a victory and Corbin must not be shown weak in his new gimmick, which was achieved by the surprise effect of the counter. It is clear that Corbin will attack the Irishman hard again at Raw and thus initiate a match at the SummerSlam, which will probably not be placed more prominently due to the packed card.
Both men urgently need success, but for Balor it doesn’t necessarily look as if WWE is still planning with him as Main Eventer. Accordingly, the victory in the Rubber Match must actually go to the Constable, who continues to flourish in his new role and undoubtedly has the potential for more.
Page 1: Sin Cara v Andrade Almas, Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt v The B-Team
Page 2: Carmella vs. Asuka, The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Team Hell No
Page 3: AJ Styles vs. Rusev, Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins