Posted in: Doctor's Orders
Doctor's Orders: Extremely Pleased With WWE Extreme Rules
By The Doc
May 23, 2016 - 12:26:35 PM

The E-Version of The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment is actually still on sale for $4.99. Click here to order.

The first companion book in the WrestleMania Era series, The Greatest Champions Of The WrestleMania Era, is also available now!

”The Doc” Chad Matthews has been a featured writer for LOP since 2004. Initially offering detailed recaps and reviews for WWE's top programs, he transitioned to writing columns in 2010. In addition to his discussion-provoking current event pieces, he has written many acclaimed series about WrestleMania, as well as a popular short story chronicle. The Doc has also penned a book, The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment, published in 2013. It has been called “the best wrestling book I have ever read” and holds a 5-star rating on Amazon, where it peaked at #3 on the wrestling charts.



QUESTION OF THE DAY: What did you think of Extreme Rules overall and, particularly, its main-event and IC title match?

Expectations are a funny thing, are they not? Three weeks ago, I had very high expectations for Payback and left feeling like the show was a (pretty good) mixed bag, with two great matches, a couple of good matches, and some head-scratchers shaping my opinion. For Extreme Rules, I had a lot lower expectations, but left feeling like I had seen a superior show. In reality, the two shows were very similar; copy and paste the opinion-shaping prose from above and it is a fitting description. Expectations, though, shifted my perception. Last night’s PPV had a weaker undercard overall and was missing that pair of three-star level performances that drove Payback’s overall success, but the two great matches were a little bit greater than those from May 1st. Let’s make like Degeneration X and break it down…

The opener – The Club vs. The Blood Line – was solid as a rock, but more like the kind you pick up randomly off the ground instead of one featuring a gem. The Tornado style created a unique dynamic that we do not get to see much from tag team wrestling; the work between the duos was just fine. It was about what you would expect and nothing more. The Usos have unfortunately developed the “are who they are” label, which is a nice way of saying that their act is stale and they do not seem intent on changing it. As for Gallows and Anderson, the WWE Universe still awaits the kind of performance that made them must-sign and are, accordingly, still in “wait and see” mode for me. (** ½)

Thankfully, as I stated was necessary on my podcast last week, Kalisto is no longer the US Champion. All due respect to a talent who may well have a bright future, but the experiment of pushing him just did not pan out; instead of rise to the US title’s stature, he ultimately dragged it down to pre-show level. Now the championship is back on Rusev, who was actually the one responsible for building its stature back up in the first place (before Cena). Attention immediately shifts away from the former champion, I suspect, onto whether or not Rusev is a place-holder for Cena on the American Memorial Day; that seems very telegraphed on WWE’s part, but Cena reclaiming and rebuilding the US title is not a bad thing in my mind. (** ¼)

Speaking of telegraphing, is it not horribly obvious that any hot heel act that gets over is going to lose steam when it turns babyface? The New Day is lacking something intangible right now and surely turning heroic was the culprit. As fellow LOP columnist, Maverick, mentioned on “The Right Side of the Pond” podcast last week, the creators of Booty-Os have lost their edge. I had hoped that a stellar performance – considering they had not been involved in a stand-out tag match since early March – would help them boost another part of their profile up to compensate for that which they lost. Alas, 6-minutes are not going to accomplish that. While their defense against the Vaudevillains was one of the better 6-minute matches that you will see in this era, it still amounted to little more than filler on this show. (** ¾)

Then, the night picked up with an historically great Intercontinental Championship match. Wow. I’ll admit to not being overly enthusiastic about the Fatal Fourway gimmick; I have always thought it to be one wrestler too many. There are always exceptions to any rule, however, and Cesaro vs. Miz vs. Owens vs. Zayn was indeed exceptional. Let me take a moment to praise Miz. That guy gets a tremendous amount of hate for someone so good at his job. He is one of the best mid-card heels in the game; end of story. People hold his WrestleMania main-event against him and use it as the primary point in their argument for saying Miz is not a good wrestler. Yes he is a good wrestler; he does a lot of the little things right that many of the spot monkeys don’t do well and those are the things that make a decent match good or a good match really good or better. When you surround Miz with elite talent, as was the case last night, you can get a tremendous performance. There is nothing wrong with being an underrated hand who has good matches regularly, but I am very happy that Miz got to be prominently involved in a match that good.

The chemistry on display between those four was incredible. Give them an award and an award to whoever helped them put it together because that was one of the best matches of the year and arguably the greatest Fatal Fourway of all-time. I think that gimmick was made for the mid-card; made for hungry guys who want to show why they should be in the main-event, similar to a stunt-brawl Ladder match with a central focus on aesthetically-pleasing spots and core utilization of unpredictability as an accent to the action. If creative allows for just the tiniest little bit of back story – like last night’s match was afforded – then you open the door to “Match of the Year”-caliber possibilities in the right setting. Again, wow. It was the Money in the Bank (Contract) 2014 of Fatal Fourways. I do not know that I would go so far as to apply the MOTY label, but it was definitely a strong contender. (**** ¼)

Quick note on star ratings – someone recently emailed me about my frequent use this year of the 4-and-a-quarter grade. My complete star ratings list (and my book) does a better job of providing details for what I take into consideration when analyzing, but here’s the deal: we are in the midst of a period where great wrestling matches are aplenty and when I start handing out **** ½ ratings, that means that I am prepared to consider said great matches not just excellent for this generation, but in the all-time sense. I like the quarter star because it helps differentiate between "greatness" and "in the greatest ever discussion." I cannot, at this point, state definitively that the Fatal Fourway, for instance, should be thrown into a category (4.5 star) reserved for the Top 50 matches of all-time conversation.

Chris Jericho and Dean Ambrose had their work cut out for them trying to follow a MOTY candidate; frankly, their work was already cut out for them beforehand due to their disappointing feud and surprising lack of crispness in their initial in-ring encounter. The Asylum match…I am just not going to spend a lot of time on it. The last five minutes were enjoyable, but the first twenty were tough to sit through. Cage matches have not worked in a long time (that is another column for another day); adding weapons above the cage did little to change an already odd dynamic. By the 20-minute mark when it started to get better, the crowd had checked out and, frankly, so had I. On the bright side, Ambrose definitively won this feud, so hopefully that will buy some grace from his fans who were so annoyed by his propensity to come up short in big matches. (** ½)

Nattie vs. Charlotte was the opposite of Jericho vs. Ambrose in the sense that the opening minutes were good but were undone by the last few. I liked the strategy that the women employed through about the 7-minute mark, but then Nattie no sold her leg injury (literally as if it never happened) and Charlotte no sold her arm injury (literally as if it never happened). Combined with another lame finish and this was another total dud. I think it’s probably best for WWE to just move away from this; you may not believe in momentum, but I do and I think the women’s division is losing it fast thanks to these lousy payoff matches between Charlotte and Nattie.

Thankfully, the night ended on a high note with a fantastic match between AJ Styles and Roman Reigns and then the return of Seth Rollins. Let’s start with the major criticism that I have seen on social media – Super Reigns. I get that; I really do. John Cena incurred the wrath of the diehard fan after being booked too strongly for years and it is a pattern that WWE would be well-served to ease up on. Unfortunately, that is WWE’s pattern and no matter who is in the role of the top babyface, pseudo-babyface, call it what you will, WWE is going to position them as capable of overcoming a landslide of physical assaults. To me, how much that point of controversy affects a match has always been the sticking point. If the match does not suffer – if we still get a great performance – then the booking trend is alright. Last night was a prime example of the match being so good that Super Reigns did not bother me.

Styles and Reigns have rare chemistry, evident in their first match but put on a more consistent display in the rematch. AJ is incredibly versatile and his skill set is so complimentary to Roman’s; maybe Rollins will be even better, but it is hard for me to envision that any opponent could be more perfect for Reigns than Styles at this stage of Double R’s career. After a disappointing Road to Mania, Reigns needed this feud with Styles and needed to remind everyone that he can get it done in the ring to at times extraordinary levels. Just like with Miz only to a greater extent, he is really good at the little things. When he gets to face someone like AJ who is his polar opposite, characteristically and physically, it allows him to emote to a greater degree and showcase his physical gifts. People are probably going to point to AJ when reflecting back on these matches and pass them off as having been carried by Styles, but they will be wrong to say so. What we saw in the last three weeks was two magnificent performances from both Styles and Reigns.

I think May 2016’s main-event feud is destined to be underappreciated historically, like Rock vs. Benoit in 2000. The main reason will be Payback’s re-starts and last night’s interference-laden finish. I do sincerely hope that I’m wrong because I have enjoyed Reigns vs. Styles as much as any main-event pairing in quite some time. For different reasons, I think their Extreme Rules match was every bit as good as anything else we saw last night or thus far this year. (**** ¼)

On this week's episode of "The Doc Says..." I will go into detail about the return of Seth Rollins and his affect on the current main-event scene.