WWE Extreme Rules 2017: Grading Hype Level for Each Announced Match on the Card
The Raw brand will limp into Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore Sunday night for its Extreme Rules pay-per-view, beaten up by declining television ratings and disappointing creative returns.
That includes pre-show hype, which has not necessarily elicited the anticipation or enthusiasm one would expect from an event that is traditionally one of the most popular on the calendar.
The main event, a Fatal 5-Way match to determine the No. 1 contender to Brock Lesnar's Universal Championship featuring Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, was thrown together when injury struck Braun Strowman and forced The Monster Among Men to the sidelines.
The Hardy Boyz have thoroughly beaten down and defeated Sheamus and Cesaro so many times that the No. 1 contenders can hardly be considered legitimate competition for the tag team champions.
Then there are Alexa Bliss and Bayley, both of whom are incredibly talented performers who found themselves on the unforgiving end of WWE writers' pencils, subjects of the worst in-ring segment in recent memory ahead of their Kendo Stick on a Pole match for the Raw Women's Championship.
That is not to say all of the hype surrounding the show was bad.
Individual matches featured some build that was not entirely lackluster, and some Superstars are just too red-hot to have the excitement surrounding them diminished by mediocre writing.
Ahead of Sunday's broadcast, find out which matches benefited greatest from solid booking and which suffered from a writing staff devoid of creativity.
Mixed Tag Team Match: Sasha Banks and Rich Swann vs. Alicia Fox and Noam Dar
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Two rivalries will come to a head Sunday night in the mixed tag team match added to the card just six days earlier.
Rich Swann sought to avenge the insult endured by friend Cedric Alexander when Alicia Fox dumped him and engaged in a relationship with Noam Dar. For months, Swann and Dar squared off with great frequency on 205 Live.
The month of May saw Sasha Banks interjected into the proceedings as she feuded with Fox, trading victories in a series of singles bouts.
On the final Raw before Extreme Rules, Swann scored a victory over Dar after The Boss prevented Fox from interfering. Just 24 hours later on 205 Live, Dar got his win back thanks to well-timed interference from his on-screen love interest.
The late addition of Banks to the feud enhanced its status on Raw. No longer a D-level rivalry reserved for the afterthought of 205 Live, it enjoyed increased television time and should benefit from The Boss' undeniable star power.
Grade
C+
Steel Cage Match for the Raw Tag Team Titles: Hardy Boyz vs. Sheamus and Cesaro
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Revenge should be at the heart of the Raw Tag Team Championships match Sunday night, but questionable booking of the No. 1 contenders has stunted what once had the potential to be the hottest story on the red brand.
Sheamus and Cesaro underwent a heel turn at Payback, with frustration over their inability to dethrone The Hardy Boyz for the tag titles fueling the change in attitude. Instead of Matt and Jeff seeking vengeance in the weeks that followed, they continued to defeat The Celtic Warrior and The Swiss Superman in singles and tag team matches.
Any heat Sheamus and Cesaro had coming out of their tremendous heel turn at Payback was extinguished in short order by a promotion that has always, and will always, been reliant on babyfaces to the extent it is detrimental to the villains.
That is the case entering Extreme Rules, and Sheamus and Cesaro have almost zero heat as they attempt to regain the titles they once called their own.
Grade
C+
Intercontinental Championship Match: Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz
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The Miz is a cowardly villain, a throwback to the bad guys who dominated professional wrestling in the glory days of the 1980s. He is brash, cocky, speaks loudly and usually relies on chicanery to ensure victory. Sunday night, he will attempt to win the Intercontinental Championship for the seventh time by dethroning Dean Ambrose.
Miz and Ambrose's differences date back to the turn of the calendar, when The Lunatic Fringe ended his rival's latest reign with the IC strap while both were on the SmackDown Live brand. Never one to allow another Superstar to get one over at his expense, Miz continued to chase the title when the Superstar Shake-up sent both men to Raw.
A low blow by Ambrose got the champion disqualified in their most recent championship bout, and Miz responded by demanding a rematch against The Lunatic Fringe at Extreme Rules. This time, though, there would be a stipulation: If Ambrose gets himself disqualified, Miz wins the title.
To hammer home just how easy it is for a Superstar to get cause a disqualification that would then net him the title, Miz interfered in a non-title bout between Ambrose and Elias Samson, attacking The Drifter and costing his rival the match.
While some would rightly argue we have seen Miz vs. Ambrose far too often in 2017, the build to this contest has been steady, made sense and garnered a strong amount of heat.
Grade
B+
Submission Match for the Cruiserweight Championship: Austin Aries vs. Neville
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At WrestleMania, Neville poked the previously inured eye of Austin Aries and defeated him to successfully retain his cruiserweight title. One month later at Payback, the self-proclaimed King of the Cruiserweights was disqualified to preserve his reign.
Since then, though, the champion has found himself humbled at the end of Aries' Last Chancery submission hold.
Never one to be outdone, he unleashed his Rings of Saturn, refusing to be one-upped by his top contender.
The implementation of submission holds, and the focus WWE Creative put on them, has set the stage for a Submission match that has the potential to steal Sunday's show. Neville and Aries have demonstrated an incredible in-ring chemistry that should help their championship clash enter discussion for Match of the Night honors.
The build to the contest, though bogged down in too many repetitive tag matches also involving Jack Gallagher and TJP, has been thoroughly entertaining and has the match primed to be one of the event's hottest.
Grade
B+
Kendo Stick on a Pole Match for the Women's Championship: Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss
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At Payback, Alexa Bliss defeated Bayley to become the new Raw women's champion.
In the wake of that, Little Miss Bliss has repeatedly run her opponent down verbally, humiliating her and poking fun at her pre-wrestling life. That was on full display on the most recent episode of Raw, when Bliss unleashed the instantly infamous Bayley: This Is Your Life segment on an unsuspecting wrestling world.
Attempting to strike at the credibility of her top contender, Bliss found herself having to rescue a putrid, poorly written segment from the depths of the abyss and failing miserably—though through no fault of her own.
Prior to the fateful night, writers had built toward Sunday's Kendo Stick on a Pole match between the champion and her rival through a series of angles in which Bliss savagely swung the weapon at Bayley's back, leaving the former titleholder squirming in agony.
Had that been the extent of the hype, the match would not be limping into Baltimore's Royal Farms Arena the way it is. Instead, there would be excitement and anticipation for Bliss' comeuppance. After all, the champion had escaped punishment at the end of the kendo stick at every turn.
Instead, the match has the stink of the aforementioned segment on it. Now, the women will have to work twice as hard to make the audience forget their downfall and appreciate the contest they lay out for their viewing pleasure Sunday.
Grade
C
Fatal 5-Way No. 1 Contender's Match
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The main event of Sunday's Extreme Rules pay-per-view will see five of the most talented professional wrestlers in the world square off for the right to challenge Brock Lesnar for a Universal Championship that has not been seen on television since WrestleMania.
An untimely and unfortunate injury suffered by Braun Strowman, the most obvious No. 1 contender, created a necessity for Sunday's clash. Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt all have the opportunity to cash a ticket to a future championship bout with The Beast Incarnate.
To get there, the Superstars found themselves entangled in a wicked web of singles, tag team and even Triple Threat bouts.
No Superstar did more to gain momentum than Joe, who choked Rollins unconscious in a tag team match one week, then pinned Wyatt to win a three-way bout also involving Balor.
Reigns has two signature victories to his name too. The Big Dog, already a front-runner, defeated Balor and Rollins in extraordinary one-on-one wars.
The build has been steady, if unspectacular. Still, WWE Creative has done a solid job of creating an unpredictable atmosphere for Sunday's main event and, as a result, generated some excitement for a show that is otherwise flat.
Grade
B+
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