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Previously on the Best and Worst of Extreme Rules: Kalisto jobbed to a mid-card heel, there was an underwhelming cage match, The Miz wrestled for 30 minutes and Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns ended up going at it in the main event. So much has changed in the last year!
If you missed Extreme Rules 2017 and somehow have no idea where to watch it, click here.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Whichever Pay-per-view This Is This Weekend 2017 for June 4, 2017.
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I might be the only person on the planet who still likes them, but why is it a surprise Apollo Crews and Kalisto had the best match on the show? We weren’t asking then to cut promos, and they both can wrestle very well.
Probably just because it was on the kickoff and going to be largely forgotten about, on a show filtered with stipulations and potentionally great matches.
I also really liked the show, so what do I know?
It’s when making a snarky joke is more important than remembering you’re a guy who knows a lot about wrestling. Of course these guys were going to have a good match.
Because by my count there were at least two other matches (Aries/Neville and the main event) that looked to be better on paper.
The logic of the tag team cage Rules was enough to make heads explode Scanners style. I guess I missed that both partners have to be on the floor at the same time…but yeah, Jeff is dumb for not just running right back in and pulling Matt out when all three guys were down the 15 times that happened before his dice. Frustrating march with four people I like.
Bayley’s loss looked one someone takes before they get fired, suspended or demoted. Barely any offense and looked incredibly bad.
Raw has been on a treadmill for a while, Joe and Brock is definitely an exciting next step. Sasha should be the next woman’s challenger by default and Tozawa really should get a go a Neville.
I was livetweeting the show for a magazine I write for; and I have a rule that I really, really, REALLY try and stay positive about what’s on screen. This show may have pushed me to the limit of that.
People always go on about so-and-so got buried, but if you want to see an actual honest to goodness burial, watch that Bayley match. She’s done for a LONG time.
No. A burial is not being on the PPV. Axel, Dallas, Sin Cara, those guys are burried. Bayley is still very over and lost a title match on a PPV to one of the hottest stars in the company.
I agree her character is a mess and that this is an obvious end to her time in the title scene, but that’s not a burial.
Yeah, there’s little coming back from that, at least for a while. She needs to be involved in, and win, other programs to build credibility back up. Hopefully figure promo’s out better, too. As Designated Piledriver said, that was the kind of loss you took in the territory days when you were leaving and weren’t coming back.
I like Bayley, but she’s been terrible on the main roster and I always knew it was going to happen.
Burials and “burials” are different things, but let’s not think this is all her shoot fault as a lot of people seem to be doing. We know that Bayley is understrength on promos, but a) she’s been working against the best female promo in the division barely getting a word in and more importantly b) they can work around that for most people they trust in. Bayley got clowned by Alexa, lost her title on PPV clean, got pinned the next night in a tag match, got clowned again (and not just in promos) all the weeks in between, then lost the PPV rematch clean in a way that made her look stupid. It’s almost as if they’re running her NXT career in reverse, coming in at the height of her confidence as beloved as anyone will ever be and now incapable and ultra-naive with fans not knowing what to do with her. And this isn’t American Alpha, where you know the division is so small and fast-moving Smackdown could do anything with them, this is the person we were told for two years was going to finally be the one to give young girls a heroine and role model so she’d be huge off the back of her crowd pops, merch sales and Make-A-Wishes. Now there’s people booing her, Sasha is comfortably outselling her and when did you last see anything of her doing charity work apart from being the hanger-on in occasional PR opportunities alongside Stephanie and Titus?
Honestly, how do you expect Bayley to be anything other than the worst when she’s been buried for the last two months?
Alexa’s push has been more ridiculous than Roman’s. At this point, I’d take another 300 day Nikki Bella reign over seeing Alexa look strong every single show. Just make it stop…
at least you’re consistent
You just stated a preference for the worst actor in the history of WWE over one of the top five actors on the current roster. Yes, I know she’s small. She’s also the best female mic worker in WWE history.
You make me not want to defend Bayley, man.
@Matt, AJ is the best female mic worker by a pretty large margin IMO. Her, Alexa and Steph (annoying as she can be) are top 3 to me
What’s up, reference to two of my favorite minor TMNT action figures/characters.
Mighty Mutanimals.
Watching that ppv was like masterbating with a cheese grater… slightly amusing, but mostly painful. Idk how you RAW peeps do it. I was super pumped about SmoJo’s win, but have already bottomed out :(
The Five Stages of Samoa Joe as #1 contender:
Denial – “Hell yeah! That main event was pretty awesome, it looks like Joe is finally getting pushed!”
Anger – “Joe is so screwed! No way Vince puts over TNA’s monster over HIS OWN MONSTER! F this!”
Bargaining – “Maybe they’ll let Joe have the belt for a few weeks. Not like a real title run, but something to legitimize him?”
Depression – “Damn it. He is gonna lose and lose badly. Make Cena and Orton’s losses look like a trip to Disney.”
Acceptance – “SmoJo sucks anyway. Overgrown Taz lookin mothafucka. I hate his stupid haircut. I hate his ugly trunks. And I hate that I don’t hate him, not even a little bit, no even at all (runs away from keyboard crying).”
Damn, I dare you to try and list the 10 things you hate about Joe and see if you’re alive long enough to actually get to 10
@Mr. Bliss I’m in a hurry, but here you go…
“I hate the way you stumbled on RAW Talk
And the way you sold out TNA Frontline
I hate the way you were boring on Table For 3
And I hate it when you injured Rollins what a crime
I hate your big dumb cuddling finisher
And the way you sweat all the time
I hate you so much that it makes me sick
It even makes me rhyme
I hate the way you wore that fake tattoo
I hate it you started NXT and didn’t even try
I hate it when you never make me laugh
Even worse when you made Sting cry
I hate the way Triple H is not around
And the fact that he won’t help build you at all
But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you
Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.”
And here’s a bonus video of Jake The Snake telling Bray Wyatt he wants to give him a blow jay…
[youtu.be]
Wow, just wow. My waning Julia Stiles crush may have just been revived.
That was beautiful man. A greater homage to the greatest teen movie, I cannot think of.
I fundamentally don’t understand how I can dislike a show so much that has Alexa Bliss, The Miz, Cesaro, Neville & Brock Lesnar as champions, but here we are.
It really feels like some sort of Twilight Zone twist that all sorts of wrestlers people enjoy are holding belts and the product feels so meh. It’s the Louis CK bit of “Everything’s Amazing and No One’s Happy.”
Also…Brock is the closest thing to a face champ on the show. And the only true face title holder in the company (NXT and the U.K. belt included) is Naomi. I know the thought is always there’s money in the chase…but it’s a little repetitive to have 10 chases going on at the same time.
This company just sucks at making babyface.
There’s literally two singles wrestlers right now who I’d say are done well: Becky Lynch and Sami Zayn. Hell, I’ll throw in Balor; he’s been doing ok getting people behind him.
But when you’re given the most over babyface you’ve had in years, and you decide that she needs to be buried, you just suck at making babyfaces. Why tune in? Why bother?
The show you describe won’t air until later today? You’re pre-planning your dislike? That seems healthy and positive.
Taking the shit they’ve been feeding you for decades at face value and adjusting your expectations accordingly is a reasonable and healthy thing to do, yes. If that leaves you wanting for positivity, your problem is with WWE, not the people who watch it.
@Dude Harrison All those champions have held those respective belts before and (spoiler alert) Raw wasn’t very good then either
The only thing I can think is. Joe is a transition champ. Brock vs Joe with joe winning seems doable. Brock vs Finn seems very 1 sided. Joe vs Finn seems doable. FInn is going to be champ soon.
I have my concerns about Joe being in a match with Lesnar so soon. They have 5 weeks to convince everyone that Joe might actually win.
I could be wrong, but did Jojo not say before the match that the only way to win the tag match was that both partners had to be out at the same time? It’s not a great rule, but I’m pretty sure it was explained.
It was but that doesn’t fit the narrative Brandon is going for.
What the hell was the point of Elias Samson doing the “your town sucks” heel thing if we cut back to our announce team who display no sense of disgust or outrage (you know, to sell what an asshole this guy is), but instead remark how exciting this fresh new talent is to watch?
Baylry will be fine, she’s just a victim of Alexa’s inexplicable rocket push. She’s not buried.
Aside from the women’s matches being too short I enjoyed the show very much. So thanks Brandon, for being kind enough to remind me “I am right, you’re not allowed to enjoy this brand, and if you disagree you’re an idiot.” Really convinced me!
*Bayley, excuse me
My only problem with Crews/Kalisto is that I don’t think Apollo gets anything from a feud with Titus, which is where I think they’re going. Let him fully turn heel and be a monster and he’s got promise. He gains nothing by staying a face and going over a lousy worker that nobody cares about.
Ambrose’s character as displayed in that match is too dumb to be in the WWE. The parts that weren’t damaged by that were decent, and Miz was great. I was surprised by how much I liked the match.
The only good thing about a mixed-tag is that it’s good fodder for cowardly heel work, and I thought Alicia and Noam did a decent bit of that. I wish we got more rasslin and less throwing hands with Sasha and Alicia.
Cage matches are inherently dumb and this one was even dumber. These matches always call for smart people to be idiots to avoid winning the match in the first 3 minutes. Throw in 1.5 guys who can’t really work (Jeff falls good, that’s it- Matt Hardy looks like a slow Dad badly pretending to wretle) and don’t credibly look like a challenge- and yeah- Cesaro and Sheamus can only do so much. Glad they have the belts.
I thought the only way the Bayley story worked is if she didn’t hesitate for a second, and then she hestitated. It was just for a second, but it was enough for her character to read as a damn idiot. It’s wrestling, you already get to hit people, what you hit them with isn’t credibly as a moral dilemma and think even the kids get that.
Aries and Neville move unlike anybody in the company. So naturally lets have them slow down and work a plodding match that seems to have been booked just to kill the crowd. (Vince- watch TakeOvers, you don’t need to do this). It wasn’t a bad match at all- but a terrible use of those two specific talents.
I really enjoyed the main event. I get the stuff Brandon complains about- but you came to a WWE show and got a WWE match. I’m not sure “this coffee tastes like coffee” is much in the way of criticism.
I do wish I could turn off the part of my brain that says “There’s no way a guy who has been booked like Joe takes the belt off of Brock at a non major PPV”. That’s mostly not WWE’s fault, Joe feels so obviously sacrificial and it’s a bummer. (but not one I’m really sure you can prevent if you’re insistent on having Brock have a match before Summer Slam)
I’m glad people are crossing to my side of the bliss fence. She’s not a good enough worker to get this push at the expense of poor bayley. If I had to put money on it, I’d wager that Samoa Joe loses a number one contenders match tonight on raw to reigns. Who wants joe in the world title hunt? the last two Summerslams have ended with lesnar wiping his nose and ass with the company’s two top guys. Why would he worry about Samoa Joe at a ppv called……. nah. Not even typing it. It’s not real anyway. Nothing is real.
Poor Bayley? Bayley has been trash since she got called up. Almost every match with Charlotte was garbage, which she can be blamed for, and every storyline has centered around her being a dork for liking wrestling and not tough, which is not her fault.
My only consistent complaint about NXT is that they spend so much time showing their work, that when the finished product gets to WWE main roster, you have to either continue evolving or start over, and WWE chose to start over with her, which is making fans revolt. She gets more and more boos every week, and is very dangerously on a career trajectory that could lead her to Roman Reigns like reactions and opinions. And she might be worse, because her character screams babyface forever.
I get that there’s a contingent of fans that are upset that Alexa’s up on the upswing while Bayley is a mess, but it’s not a zero sum game and y’all look awfully foolish trying to throw shade at Alexa as part of this argument.
Listen the the crowd when Bayley and Alexa came out. The face got more boos than the heel. That’s not because of anything Alexa did to Bayley. It’s 1- because Alexa has been incredible (yeah- she’s still not wonderful in ring, but everything else has been undeniably fantastic). 2- Because Bayley has had a mess made out of her character. That’s been happening since before Alexa was on RAW.
Bayley getting boos is inexcusable. It’s an unfortunate result of the cynical main roster audience who would rather cheer someone for wanting to have sex with her or being sarcastic or her facials or whatever. Alexa being “fantastic” is the biggest nonsense I’ve ever read. Sad that everyone’s so jaded they couldn’t connect with the purest, most lovable babyface.
All her matches have been good and the match where she won the title from Charlotte was fantastic.
I think you’re misunderstanding me, I mean poor bayley the human. Her character is terrible and it’s showing. Turn her heel now and go full macho man with her. Make a queen of the ring tournament and have her win. Have her take on a male slave to do her bidding. Do something. Anything.
@RawFan Look at the pops Bayley got when she first debuted. Those same cynical fans loved the more pure version of her character. You seem to be hinting at an argument that suggests she’s fallen out of favor with fans because she’s not an Alexa- but I think the real problem is that she’s not enough of an anti-Alexa. Bayley was the most pure babyface in the world, and not she’s something else that’s really hard to define, but it’s not compelling, relatable or likable.
She won a title because Sasha cheated for her and was fine with it. The version of Bayley that people got behind wouldn’t do that. Nor would the version of Bayley that people got behind (the one that finally grew up and realized when it was time to kick ass and take names” also wouldn’t be so timid to slap around the latest mean girl who got up in her shit.
I’m usually the first guy to get upset at the crowd for not reacting to somebody “correctly”- but I can’t fault the response Bayley is getting. It’s sad AF, but it’s earned.
I do like how The Miz did also try to win without him cheating right away and then brag abour it when he didn’t quite win clean.
Welp, The Bailey Experiment is over. Long Live Queen Bliss.
Hail!
Bayley started out looking like a Ricky Steamboat pure babyface. Now she’s more like Vic Steamboat, except with fewer titles.
This PPV was way more fun to watch than this write up gives it credit for.
It seems like most of the ill will stems just from the name… so if it had a different PPV Name would it be a better show?
I enjoyed most of this, with really only the woman’s match not giving me any sort of pop. Everything else I thought was perfectly fine and carried big match feel along with it.
I agree, but, even when it was over and I joked to my friend “That was a pretty good RAW,” there just wasn’t much to be excited for aside from Miz’s win. Everything else just maintained the status quo and I think that’s what makes it hard to be excited about this show. Joe winning doesn’t pop me, cause I feel like a lose to Brock is a certainty, although it could be a fun match.
a loss to Brock not a lose to Brock
Ok but what outcomes could have made you feel different? You had two titles change hands – does it just bother you that ALL of them didn’t change hands?
I was a little surprised they went with Joe because I thought they’d give him a face like Rollins or Balor first and really play up the size difference… Joe seems like a much more even match that I’d expect them to hold off on until later.
Other than that, I thought the outcomes were solid, the matches were good, etc. We don’t need all the storylines completed on every PPV – we have one every 3 weeks or so at this point, it’s okay if some of them are less important than the others. We aren’t spending 50 bucks a pop on them anymore. These PPV shows are for the better actual wrestling, RAW is story heavy with less in ring action.
@Dan Peterson, it’s not the outcomes that disappointed. It’s how flat WWE has been as a whole. Aside from Alexa finishing off Bayley, it doesn’t feel like any of these matches were the last we’re going to see of any of these feuds. I wouldn’t be surprised if GBoF has at least 4 rematches from this show. I know I hate smozz finishes at PPVs but this cycle seems to have been going on for so long that I would’ve loved to see Sampson somehow cost Ambrose the match so we’d know Ambrose would be moving to a different feud….or Cesaro and Sheamus destroying the Hardyz so hard that the Hardyz have no legit claim to demand a rematch. Just anything to tell us that this show ended these feuds that have been running forever. At least with Aries/Neville, I feel like that was the end and we can move on to something different.
@Dan Peterson Yeah not understanding the hate for it either.
I thought this was a really good PPV. Of course, I didn’t actually turn it on until the start of the main event. And I didn’t really start paying attention until at least half way through the match. And I was on my 4th or 5th (who’s counting?) beer at that point.
Still, solid stuff.
Brandon, for your health and sanity, I beg of you…please stop watching the modern product.
Yes, please go back and watch WWE from other eras, where the booking was just as nonsense, it was way more offensive and regressive, and the in-ring wrestling was much worse.
Have we, the fans, been in the doghouse since Wrestlemania XXX for wanting DB in the main event and this is our endless punishment?
i don’t know why you are throwing a hissy fit about that cage match with Jeff coming back in and erasing himself from being outside the cage. It is literally no different than how regular matches work with the ref doing a count out. You have both men outside being counted out. One guy goes back in while the other is still outside the ring. the guy that crawled back in the ring and then slides back out to deal more punishment for some reason winds up making the ref restart the count.
It’s really no different in the preference of this cage match. Jeff going back in the cage is like the ref doing a re-count.
in a tag cage match, you simply must have both members outside the cage on the floor at the same time.
Well. Brandon said years ago that Alexa seemed like the type WWE would strap a rocket to, and…here we are. First WWE champion–PERIOD–to hold the belts of both shows. Got to destroy someone who had one of the best matches of the last few years in Bayley. And I’d be willing to bet she’ll hold on to that belt for quite some time.
….Unless Asuka gets called up randomly.
What was Michael Cole doing dressed up as IRS at ringside?
I really enjoyed the show, thought all the matches (save Bayley/Bliss) were really good, but I agree with loads of your points about it all Brandon, even though you didn’t seem to like any of it much…weird.
As for the cage match rules, they sorta, kinda made sense to me….yes Jeff got out first then got back in, but I think the rule was supposed to be that both team members had to be outside of the cage together to win. But it wasn’t very clear. And Jeff is an idiot for not getting straight back in once he realised Matt hadn’t followed….and yeah not sure how a SPIKE WHITE NOISE from the top hurts less than a whisper in the wind from not much higher than usual that connects successfully….like I say, I agree with just about everything you say in this write up but still thought Extreme Rules was pretty good?
I never understood the point of the “escape” condition to win cage matches. Like, the whole point of a cage match is that they’re enclosed in this dangerous structure so they can beat the shit out of each other (and ostensibly to prevent interference), not so you can win by *running away* from them. Remember a couple months ago when Tye Dillinger beat Eric Young in a cage match by basically running from Young and SAnitY like a lil bitch? Ridiculous. Pinfall or submission only. Don’t prove you’re better than your blood rival by running away.
I have a genuine question… Does everybody on here hate the WWE product as much as the reviewer? I hope not. Quickly, I was a WWF fanatic in my teens through college years, then took a long time away. I started to get back into it about two years ago or so, but never felt the need to comment on anything. But here’s the deal, I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve seen. Yet this site trashes almost everything. Maybe time to get some less-jaded people involved. It’s entertainment, and it’s supposed to be fun. Enjoy it. For the last two years that I started watching again, I’ve really liked what I’ve seen, enough so that I started looking online and seeing UPROXX as a (free) site for wresting and I followed. I followed without comment for a couple years now. And I’ve read every Best and Worst in between. I think it’s time for some positivity and not hating on every (at least somewhat) enjoyable show you are responsible to review. Run me through if you must, but it’s a fun little escape that I have had a deep respect for, for many years. Why does everyone on this site have to be so negative?
We don’t hate WWE. Well, I’ll speak for myself: I don’t hate WWE, nor do I think Brandon does either. Some of us just wish they’d hold themselves to a higher standard. They are capable of putting on incredible shows with consistent character motivations (see: 1997 RAW, almost all of NXT 2.0), but refuse to do so to cater to the least common denominator. I don’t know why. Kids are smart, they like good television. Adults are smart, they like good television. And in an golden age for TV where you can watch probing, engaging content at any time on any device, a steady dose of, “[X] has pinned the [X] champion,” or a character ignoring all the realities of the universe around them to get to a contrived finish that doesn’t benefit anyone, is frustrated at best, off-putting at worst.
I love wrestling. I love WWE, in theory. But in execution, they make it very difficult on themselves. The athleticism is the best of any era of wrestling. The talent on the roster is incredible. The creative (not the booking decisions of who wins and loses, but the redundant, illogical tropes) isn’t worthy of praise.
I hate when I feel like I’m living in a bizarro world because I’m the only person I know who loved/hated something wrestling-related but I was a huge fan of the finishes of both the IC and tag title matches…
-As far as I’m concerned, the reason Miz didn’t just try to cheat immediately was pride. Is that so hard to understand? That maybe Miz is proud and cocky enough to believe he can win this match legit but insecure enough to keep some cheats in his back pocket if he feels it slipping away? Makes a lot of sense to me.
-In what way did the ref immediately forget Miz was trying to cheat? I thought the ref’s discretion about the stipulation was unusually great, honestly. He’s not stupid enough to believe Maryse has switched sides to Ambrose but when Ambrose barrels into him he doesn’t see it. Ambrose is insisting Miz pushed him (and, as was pointed out, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that he would just push him) so the ref is hesitating and Ambrose is distracted trying to convince him of what happened so Miz, not taking any chances, uses the distraction to hit his finish and win. The ref can’t just NOT count the pin because it was off a distraction. No one would ever win a match on Raw if that were true. Miz used the stipulation brilliantly in his favor and it added some good psychology to the match. And I’m the first one to roll my eyes at the irony of an EXTRA rules match opening Extreme Rules but they made it work, IMO.
-The stipulation of the cage match absolutely makes sense (in spite of how generally stupid cage doors are). Why should you be able to touch your feet to the floor and then just immediately jump back in the match like you just hit a button in an obstacle course? It adds so much psychology if you have to risk negating your exit to get back in. First you have to decide if it’s worth it to escape on your own and leave your partner to escape from a 2-on-1 situation. Then if you do that, you have to decide whether to go back in for your partner and negate your escape to help them. I think that’s great.
-I also think the complaining about the structure of WWE multiple participant matches is a little overblown. It’s not like they spent the whole match putting different people in one-on-one situations. It was very much a mix of two-, three-, four-, and five-person matchups. I like the variety of highlighting all those different combinations instead all five guys just constantly running at each other like Randy Orton’s favorite indie match. I don’t think it’s “one thing” at all.
I also think Joe and Bray’s uneasy alliance is a perfect pairing and could help Bray’s character a lot. Bray is a hypnotic, brainwashy cult leader and Joe is a straight up mercenary. That’s a perfect dynamic and it makes total sense. I love that.
Also…Roman Reigns just standing in the ring at the start of the match and mugging and stretching while everybody else fought each other made me realize just how SUPER on point the Roman Reigns character has been since WrestleMania. The booking and the no-selling is still often infuriating, but character-wise the guy has been pitch perfect.
Also I forgot to mention another reason I liked the IC title ending is because it gives Miz a shred of legitimacy because even though he used heel tactics to “steal” a win, he still got, like, a VAGUELY fair and square pinfall victory which makes him look a LOT better than if he had just won by DQ like everyone expected.
I think the spooky bugs in the ring thing could actually be more effective in a multi-man match. He should have tried it again but this time try to capitalize on it. Surprise pin or something.