WWE's Best Match of the Week: Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan: 2/3 Falls, Extreme Rules

Extreme Rules was the WWE’s best pay-per-view since Money in the Bank in 2011. 

It featured a really good Falls Count Anywhere match between Randy Orton and Kane, and three other fantastic matches that the Chicago crowd only made better. 

Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, a brutal beatdown that told a great story, as Lesnar dominated Cena throughout.

Meanwhile, Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk in a Chicago Street Fight was an incredible brawl that also featured some great technical wrestling. 

But the Extreme Rules match that I enjoyed the most was probably the third-most talked about fight on the card: Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan in a 2-out-of-3 Falls match for the World Heavyweight Championship. 

There was a ton of outrage among Internet wrestling fans after WrestleMania 28, when we felt ripped off because Sheamus vs. Bryan only lasted 18 seconds.

At Extreme Rules on Sunday, Bryan and Sheamus showed why wrestling fans across the world were so upset with their “match” at WrestleMania. 

While the Mania bout between these two got just 18 seconds, their 2-out-of-3 Falls Match at Extreme Rules got a whopping 23 minutes, which is along the lines of what many of us were expecting to see in Miami. 

Instead, we got it in Chicago. And it was worth the wait. 

Bryan has developed a reputation as one of the best wrestlers in the world, but he had never really been given the opportunity to have that long, show-stealing match since coming to the WWE. 

Aside from his match with Dolph Ziggler at Bragging Rights in 2010, not much on Bryan’s WWE resume stood out. 

That was, until Sunday. 

Bryan and Sheamus went all out for 23 minutes at Extreme Rules, telling a great story of the powerful baby face champion vs. the sly and crafty heel and combining it with some awesome technical wrestling. 

Say what you want about Sheamus, but I think that he proved that he belongs in his current spot as World heavyweight champion, and I think that Bryan showed why Internet wrestling fans love him so much. 

These two didn’t do any outrageous spots or anything overly complicated at Extreme Rules. 

What they did was wrestle, and—oh, yeah—they did it amazingly well, too.

Drake Oz is the WWE Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions (to be answered in the B/R Mailbag) on Formspring.