Hello everyone, STVO here! I apologize for the late report of this and Anime Central 2012 (which will be out this week!) I just want to let you know if I haven’t already that April 26-29th was one amazing weekend! I wish it were still going on as for the most part reality can really bite. Post con-depression did get to me for a while, but it was good to see everyone and it was real nice having a rather exciting wrestling event following the epic weekend. Since it has been over a week since Extreme Rules has moved on, I’m not going to make this report long as there likely have been many other reports that are already on the web, but I’ll give you some of my insight.
The Pre-Extreme Rules YouTube match of Santino Marella vs.
The Miz opened up the show. It was a
decent match and as I predicted Santino would make the Miz lose by performing
the Cobra to end the match. It’s kind of
depressing to see The Miz go from WWE Champion/main eventer to “dark
match”/pre-show opener. Santino was
pretty over with the Chicago crowd for the most part.
Randy Orton vs. Kane was a very good way to open the
show! Kane and Orton battled all over
the arena. My group and I were at the very top, we knew they wouldn’t battle to
the top but we were trying to encourage them with “go up top!” chants. Oh well, we actually had a very good view for
the whole event!
Back onto the match, I knew Orton would win and am fine with
the result, but as a fan of Kane I definitely was rooting on the Big Red
Machine.
Brodus Clay’s entrance had the crowd and myself on their
feet! My section and I were dancing and
singing “Somebody Call My Mama!” It’s real funny though, while the crowd was
hot for Brodus’s entrance, as soon as the match started, there were surprisingly
several “Dolph Ziggler” or “Let’s go Dolph!” chants. Sorry Funkusaurus, I guess we were just using
you for your entrance theme. L Looks like that doesn’t matter though, Brodus
won the match anyway. Honestly, what is
with these once main-eventer/future main-eventer heels losing to comedic faces?
I like the Brodus Clay character but even I felt that Dolph Ziggler should have
won this match, as he is a solid superstar and really should be closer to the
main event scene. I mean he was just
feuding with CM Punk at the beginning of this year!!
Big Show vs. Cody Rhodes was for most part unmemorable in my
opinion. There was a real nice spot with
Cody pulling off a nice reversal kick off of a table stacked against the ring
post to the Big Show. The ending while
it makes sense was real corny. Big Show
came close to land on a table on the outside. He prevented his fall by holding
onto the ropes but stepped on the table and broke the table with his weight
resulting in Cody Rhodes to win back the Intercontinental Championship. While the title will likely help Cody more
than The Big Show, the fluke victory was a little too cheesy for me. The crowd and I did root Big Show on for his
post-match beating onto Cody by putting him through two tables!
Okay, so I was really tired from the convention and was
getting a bit restless and on top of that getting pretty hot from being in
cosplay at Extreme Rules. By the way, I
think that will be my last cosplay at a live stadium event (unless it’s more
comfortable.) Got many funny looks and one picture request, but other than
that, too much work. Because of all this I decided to get a drink and some food
to keep me up so I missed a good portion of the Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus match
because the people working the concessions were a little slower than I was
wishing. Oh, let me show you some pictures of my friends and myself at Extreme Rules. 3 out of 5 of us were in cosplay, haha.
Fortunately I finally was able to watch a replay of this
match. A lot of this should have been
what happened in their WrestleMania match.
A very entertaining match but I have one slight nitpick: Why did Daniel
Bryan get disqualified in this match? First off Daniel Bryan was only kicking Sheamus
(I guess he went against the referee’s orders, but really?) and second off this
PPV is called EXTREME RULES! Wasn’t the
original theme of this event supposed to be that every match is under Extreme
Rules so anything goes? I know a slight
nit pick, but you might as well call the show Backlash instead of Extreme Rules
if you’re going to do that. Anyway, I
enjoyed the match with the fact that they made it seem like Daniel Bryan had
the major advantage including making Sheamus pass out during his match. The crowd leaned more towards Daniel Bryan in
cheers but many fans also chanted “18 seconds” in response to “Daniel Bryan.”
There were also fans chanting “Yes” followed by other fans chanting “No.” It was very much a similar “Let’s Go
Cena/Cena Sucks” moment for Daniel Bryan.
The next match was hilarious to me. Hilarious in the sense that you know WWE
wants this guy to be massively over but right now it isn’t currently
working. Ryback (Skip Sheffield turned
Terminator) squashed two jobbers. I do
have a problem with this match being on the main PPV card because this is
something we typically expect only to happen on a show like WWE NXT or perhaps
Smackdown. I actually do like Ryback as
he has some very impressive strength and I enjoyed Ryback’s previous character
of Skip Sheffield. The fans were
chanting “Goldberg!” during the match, which was seriously hilarious! Maybe it’s just me, but perhaps before
Ryback’s matches, maybe HE should be cutting a promo instead of the jobbers?
The jobbers aren’t going to be on the roster full-time, why do they have more
personality than Ryback? Maybe Ryback
can say something like “I’ll go easy on you, but I can’t promise you won’t be
injured.” It’s not great, but it’s probably better what they’re currently
doing.
CM Punk made the crowd really hot when he came out and went
on to defeat Chris Jericho. Easily the
biggest pop of the night. While I’m
perfectly fine with CM Punk continuing his reign as the top champion in the WWE
and am happy he has been the longest reigning WWE champion in recent history, I
wonder where they are going to go with Chris Jericho? Is Chris Jericho okay with being in a similar
position he was in previously before he decided to take off from the WWE? As of this Monday night on Raw, both he and
Randy Orton were added to the World Heavyweight Championship match at Over the
Limit against Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus.
Personally, I hope he gets another world title reign but with the
rumored Fozzy concert tour he’ll be doing this summer, I’m not sure how likely
that will be.
Layla vs. Nikki Bella was a match that a good majority of
the crowd could not care any less about.
I remember that a lot of us were anticipating the return of Kharma to be
Nikki’s mystery opponent. No offense to
Layla, she is beautiful and a decent talent, she and most of the other Divas
are not very exciting to watch on TV. In
fact, a couple of us started randomly chanting for TNA Knockouts like Gail Kim,
Velvet Sky, ODB, and Mickie James.
Finally, the main event of
the night happened. John Cena vs. Brock
Lesnar ended the show. Brock Lesnar
dominated the majority of the match.
While the fans were already chanting “Cena Sucks” and “Let’s Go Cena”
most fans weren’t as hyped for Brock when he first came out. It wasn’t until Brock started manhandling
John Cena that more cheers began (I personally was going wild for Brock
throughout the whole thing.) There was
one moment where several of us believed Brock had an injury. Brock jumped up and showed no injury was had
and we went wild in cheers for him.
Eventually John Cena came back in the match by using a chain on him and
giving him an attitude adjustment in the middle of the ring to win the match.
This win lead to my group and I leaving even when Cena gave his post-match
speech.
Here’s the problem I have
with this. You sign Brock Lesnar to a
limited appearance $5 million contract for one year. You start off his return as a powerhouse and
even have him dominate John Cena in the majority of the match. Then Cena pulls a “Super Cena,” wins the
match, and then talks about how he will be taking time off in the near future
possibly. Look, I get that Cena lost to
The Rock earlier in April and could have used a big win, but I think Brock
Lesnar could have used this win a lot more than Cena could have. If it were me booking I would have had Brock
win the match, cause Cena to be taken out on a stretcher (this was one of the
rumored scenarios for this match allegedly), then they can resume the events of
Lesnar attacking HHH on Raw and “quitting WWE” already. How many of you guys really want to see John
Laurinaitis vs. John Cena at Over The Limit? I sure as hell don’t. I think they should have had Brock injure
Cena, give Cena 2 months off, have him return in July and challenge Brock
Lesnar to a match at Money in the Bank where Cena could have got his win back
and have HHH and Brock Lesnar go at it at Summer Slam.
I don’t think things are doom
and gloom for Lesnar, not by a long shot.
They can be however if he continues to lose most of his matches. I get that WWE hired him to help put over
stars and that’s fine but you’re attracting a much wider audience with Brock
Lesnar now! When I told former WWE fans that he was back, they had a sparked
interest and even some of the UFC never WWE fans were interested in this
development. Again, as long as they use
Lesnar right, he doesn’t have to plow through every opponent, but he shouldn’t
lose too often, then I think he will be $5 million well spent. Personally though, if they plan to job him to
HHH, Randy Orton, and CM Punk the next few times he wrestles, then I personally
think it is time they write Lesnar off as a $5 million loss.
Overall Show Opinion: Even if Extreme Rules didn’t come off as good on TV, going
to a live event makes a PPV or even a Raw that much better because you get to
join in the cheers, you get to hear/see the pyro and live entrances, and it’s
overall a larger than life feel. But
like last year, Extreme Rules is usually a PPV that will deliver the
goods. Aside from a few filler matches,
we received three excellent matches of John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar (IMO way
better than Cena/Rock), Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus, and CM Punk vs. Chris
Jericho. Randy Orton vs. Kane was a hot
opener to a great show as well. While
the Lesnar losing decision has me puzzled, it still didn’t change me from
enjoying the show. Overall I would say
it’s an 8 out of 10.
BTW, I bought a Brock Lesnar
and Daniel Bryan Shirt.
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