Greetings. Welcome to the latest installment of No Chance, where we look at this week in PPVs, namely, WWE’s Extreme Rules from this past Sunday.
Now, in an earlier column I moaned about Extreme Rules simply being a rehash of WrestleMania, with three of the matches scheduled for the PPV to be repeats of WrestleMania matches. (Four if you count that Edge was originally going to defend his title again) Â However, much to my pleasant surprise, I found myself enjoying almost every match on the Card.
Punk and Orton had what was arguably the best match at WrestleMania so their bar had been set the highest. While I think that their earlier match ended up being better than this one, I have to say it was still as strong match, put on by two of the best wrestlers working today. Side note to the WWE: What is this I hear about Punk leaving? How is this even a possibility? Have you not seen his work, over the past couple of years? Punk is one of your best workers right now, and if he is not happy then you need to work on fixing it. Punk leaving? Do not let this happen.
As Chris Sanders pointed out in The Rager, (found here) I did in fact find the Announcer’s match to be a fantastic time for a nap. So whole I missed the bulk of the match, what I have since heard, is that I was correct in my decision to stare at the back of my eyelids instead of at the TV for this match. Besides I did wake up in time to see Cole get the pin so I suppose that for some reason, this feud is going to continue. Congratulations WWE, you have officially created a feud, less interesting in the Diva storylines.
I’m always a little concerned when we get falls count anywhere matches, because this means that the wrestlers have to leave the ring for an extended period of time to make the “falls count anywhere†stipulation justified. This almost always leads to fighting up and down the stairs in the arena, which never looks all that realistic. The Extreme Rules fight was no exception to that, as Cody and Rey both made their way through the crowd stumbling up the stairs and took their fight out into the big bad world. Ok, so it was just over by the concession stand, but still, the fight became pretty impressive, and it was worth the rough patches of going up and down the stairs to have that segment as part of the show.
As for the Caged Main Event, I love how every time a cage is introduced, we are reminded that it is to keep others from interfering, but R-Truth is able to interfere anyway. Can I say how much Both R-Truth the heel and John Morrison’s in ring ability has impressed me as of late? Truth has excelled on mike over the past few weeks, and even though Morrison was the third wheel of the match on Sunday, he was still able to hold his own, and never seemed like he didn’t deserve to be there. As long as they don’t screw it up, WWE has a quality Main event in the making with this feud between the two of them.
As for Cena winning the title, I’ll admit, I was a bit surprised. I suspected that Miz was going to hold the belt for a little longer, but in retrospect, Miz did win the belt back in November, and has had it for over 150 days. I guess its time to make sure he can still be a top heel, even without the belt.
I am, however, interested in how WWE plans to deal with Cena’s claim about next year’s WrestleMania match being for the Championship. Is Cena going to hold onto the belt for an entire year? Or is someone else going to have a small run with the belt where Cena needs to get it back. Or perhaps, Cena doesn’t get it back and the Cena/Rock match is instead simply a grudge match. So what about Cena’s claims about the match being for the WWE Championship? Do we just sweep those under the rug and pretend he never said them? If Cena goes into WrestleMania as the Champ, I feel like that would almost guarantee a Cena victory, since they’re not going to belt The Rock. Or could The Rock come back as champion and have another genuine run with the title? (Wouldn’t that be nice?) Also if Cena has the belt, won’t the winner of the Royal Rumble have to go for the Smackdown title, since the Raw title is already tied up in a match? But if Cena doesn’t have the belt next year, that means that there will be four main event matches. (Two title shots, Rock and Cena, and Undertaker’s 20-0 match) Seems to already be getting a bit crowded for a PPV that’s still a year away.
For a quick note about the following night, Raw was a bit of a waste of time this week, (I think only one mach made it from bell to bell), but I was pleased enough with Extreme Rules the night before that I was in a good enough mood that I didn’t mind as much. Plus, knowing that The Rock was going to be taking up a huge chunk of the time, it was kind of expected.
Besides, at the end of the show, we got an appearance from Vince McMahon, which is always a plus in my book. I would have loved for him to be in classic, Mr. McMahon persona, but at least we got to hear the “No Chance†theme again for a few seconds.
Unrelated side thought of the column: I tend to be pretty hard on the referees of WWE matches, as we all do. They seem to miss countless examples of cheating every week, and even when the do see it, they rarely actually do anything about it, other than yell for it to stop. Still giving credit where credit is due, Whenever a ref gets knocked out by a wrestler, the first thing they do when the regain consensus, is go right back to the match, usually counting a pin fall. That’s dedication
