Updated 2020 WWE Extreme Rules Match Card Ahead of PPV

WWE will pull back the curtain on The Horror Show at Extreme Rules on Sunday, its final pay-per-view before the biggest event of the summer. 

Seven matches have been announced for the card thus far, including Seth Rollins taking on Rey Mysterio in a bout that WWE promises will only end when one of the participants has extracted an eye from their opponent's skull. 

Five championship bouts are also scheduled to take place, including Dolph Ziggler—for reasons unknown to anyone in the WWE Universe—receiving a WWE title shot against Drew McIntyre, ahead of SummerSlam on August 23. 

Here's the announced card for The Horror Show at Extreme Rules 2020:

WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler

Eye for an Eye Match: Seth Rollins vs. Rey Mysterio

WWE Raw Women's Championship: Asuka (c) vs. Sasha Banks

WWE SmackDown Women's Championship: Bayley (c) vs. Nikki Cross

Wyatt Swamp Fight: Bray Wyatt vs. Braun Strowman

WWE United States Championship: Apollo Crews (c) vs. MVP

Tables Match for WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championships: The New Day (Big E and Kofi Kingston) (c) vs. Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura

Storylines to Watch 

Rey Mysterio's Last Match in WWE?

As dumb as the stipulation for the Rollins-Mysterio match is, there could be a method to the madness for WWE. 

Yes, it's following up on the storyline from an episode of Raw two months ago when Rollins attacked Mysterio during a tag team match and threw The Master of the 619 into the steel steps face first. 

"Rey Mysterio’s injury status is still listed as critical," WWE said in an update on its website. "Doctors cannot properly assess the damage to his retina until the swelling subsides, as Rey is currently at-risk for infection."

On a practical level, though, the match could be a way to write the veteran off television. 

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter recently reported Mysterio has been working without a contract since his deal with WWE expired. 

Mysterio returned to WWE on a full-time basis in September 2018 after making a one-off appearance at the Royal Rumble eight months earlier. The 45-year-old has had several high-profile matches during this run, including against Rollins and Brock Lesnar. 

It's certainly possible Mysterio could re-sign with WWE at any point, but the stipulation for this PPV would seem to indicate the loser is going to be out of action for a significant period of time. 

What's Next for McIntyre?

With apologies to all of the Ziggler fans out there, The Horror Show at Extreme Rules seems designed to serve as something for McIntyre to do before getting to his next big match at SummerSlam. 

WWE has never shown confidence in Ziggler as a top guy; he was destroyed by Otis at WrestleMania 36 and Money in the Bank before being gifted a title shot against the Scot for no real reason. 

Barring some strange change in direction, McIntyre will leave Sunday's show as champion and awaiting a new challenger at SummerSlam. 

Depending on how the booking goes, the two most obvious candidates are Rollins and Randy Orton. If The Monday Night Messiah "ends" Mysterio's career, he could set his sights on the championship.

It would make for a good match, but WWE has already done a feud with Rollins and McIntyre for the title this year. The Scottish Superstar pinned his rival clean with a Claymore Kick at Money in the Bank. 

Orton is coming off a win over Edge at Backlash in the "Greatest Wrestling Match Ever" and is scheduled to wrestle Big Show on Monday's episode of Raw. WWE booking traditionally indicates that a marquee pay-per-view followed by a win over a giant will lead to a title match. 

One potential wild card to keep an eye on is Brock Lesnar, who hasn't been seen since losing the title to McIntyre at WrestleMania. WWE typically saves The Beast Incarnate for its biggest events of the year, a category thst SummerSlam falls into. 

Will Any Titles Change Hands?

Since it's established that McIntyre losing to Ziggler makes no sense, let's look at the possibilities of at least one of the other four titles changing hands on Sunday. 

With respect to MVP, who is a fantastic talker, he announced his in-ring retirement in January and has been randomly working matches on television leading up to his U.S. title shot against Apollo Crews. 

Crews has had a fantastic run since defeating Andrade to win the championship in May. He's got more upside at this stage of their respective careers and should get a clean win over MVP. 

This brings us to the women's championship matches. WWE has done occasional teases of a rift between Bayley and Sasha Banks—of course, this has been hinted at many times in the past with nothing coming of it. 

If WWE is really, truly, finally serious about doing a Bayley vs. Banks match, one way to get there would be to have The Legit Boss defeat Asuka to become Raw women's champion and Bayley losing the SmackDown women's title to Nikki Cross. 

Assuming Bayley would continue to play the heel role, her jealousy at seeing her friend with a title makes for an easy story to tell. They would have to drop the women's tag titles along the way, but that could also be used in the storyline with The Role Model turning on Banks in a match. 

One flaw in that plan is it would require Asuka to lose, which doesn't seem like the right move at this point since she is being booked as the top women's star with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair out of action.

The other option is having The New Day drop their tag title belts. While Cesaro and Nakamura are an entertaining duo from an in-ring perspective, it's unclear whether keeping them together for an extended run as the tag champs is the right course to take given the need for depth in the hunt for singles titles.

If there are no title changes on this show, it would mark the second straight WWE pay-per-view in which every champion retained. Crews, Bayley and Banks, Asuka and McIntyre left Backlash with their respective belts last month.