WWE Extreme Rules 2019 airs this Sunday, July 14, live on WWE Network. The stipulation-heavy event features a “winner take all” extreme rules match for both the Universal and Raw Women’s Championships, Roman Reigns teaming up with the Undertaker against the unstoppable Shane McMahon (and his henchman Drew McIntyre), and more. We’ll be here on Sunday night with results, breakout news, and more. Here’s the complete card as we know it.
WWE Extreme Rules 2019 Card:
1. Winner Take All Mixed Tag Team Match for the Universal and Raw Women’s Championships: Seth Rollins (c) and Becky Lynch (c) vs. Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans
2. WWE Championship Match: Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Samoa Joe
3. Handicap Match for the Smackdown Women’s Championship: Bayley (c) vs Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross
4. No Holds Barred: The Undertaker and Roman Reigns vs. Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre
5. Triple Threat Match for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship: Daniel Bryan and Rowan (c) vs. The New Day vs. Heavy Machinery
6. Raw Tag Team Championship Match: The Revival (c) vs. The Usos
7. Last Man Standing Match: Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley
8. United States Championship Match: Ricochet (c) vs. AJ Styles
9. Aleister Black vs. Cesaro
10. Cruiserweight Championship Match: Drew Gulak (c) vs. Tony Nese
As always, we’ve got your complete rundown of the card and analysis below, featuring predictions for all ten matches. Make sure to drop a comment and let us know who you think’s winning, and be here on Sunday to see if you’re correct.
Here’s what we think will go down at Extreme Rules 2019. At least it’s not Stomping Grounds!
Cruiserweight Championship Match: Drew Gulak (c) vs. Tony Nese
What Should Happen: “Tony Nese, Cruiserweight Champion,” felt like a bad idea at first but turned into a pretty good little run, but “Tony Nese, two-time Cruiserweight Champion, depriving us of a lengthy Drew Gulak run,” is one of the worst ideas I can imagine. And I’ve thought of like five different ways Baron Corbin can end up Universal Champion.
What Will Happen: Assuming that this and probably the Raw Tag Team Championship match get shuffled onto the Kickoff Show for Sam Roberts and Pat McAfee to get weird about, Gulak should retain. It took forever to get the purple belt on him, and there’s still so much to do. We’ve barely scratched the surface.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – Going with Gulak here, because it seems entirely too short of a title run for him to drop it here.
Emily Pratt – This match should be solid to very good. Tony Nese, you had a good run, as champion, but I cannot allow you to get back the purple belt. You must be sacrificed so I get a Gulak vs. Tozawa championship feud.
Elle Collins – Gulak keeps the belt. He’ll hopefully keep it for a while, but one thing I’m certain of is that he’s not losing it back to Nese.
Aleister Black vs. Cesaro
What Should Happen: The match opens the show, goes about 13 and a half minutes, and involves two nigh-superhuman guys beating the absolute dog shit out of each other. If Aleister Black spent a couple of months in the Stardust Memorial Promo Room doing nothing, his first step out needs to be a Takeover-quality match against another guy who doesn’t get enough opportunities to steal the show.
What Will Happen: It goes about two minutes, the 24/7 Championship division runs in, and then Black gets in a sneaky kick while Cesaro’s frustrated about R-Truth. I don’t know. I’m just putting that negative energy out into the world so it won’t happen, and we get the bad-ass European murder daddy struggle we’re all begging for. Black probably wins.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – There’s no way they build Black in a dark room for this long only for him to lose to Cesaro, right? I’ve got Black.
Emily Pratt – Is this secretly one of those early NXT matches when they’d have Cesaro come over and wrestle the new guys? I think it might be. Black goes over so he doesn’t have the main roster storyline of 1) tag team success 2) separated from partner 3) locks himself in a room for weeks 4) exits the room and loses instantly.
Elle Collins – This match is going to be amazing, obviously, but all I really want is for it to keep Aleister out of that dark room for the foreseeable future and in the ring wrestlings instead. Even if he has six more matches with Cesaro after this, it’ll be a definite improvement. I do think Aleister wins here. He needs to after that month or two sitting in the dark.
United States Championship Match: Ricochet (c) vs. AJ Styles
What Should Happen: This could end up being a really fantastic pay-per-view in a WCW way, where you pretend the main event doesn’t exist. So much of the show could steal it; Black vs. Cesaro, either of the tag team matches, Joe vs. Kofi, a spot-filled Last Man Standing match, and the United States Championship match where Ricochet and AJ Styles stop farting around on Raw and leave it all in the ring. I want these two to tear it up to the point we have to check and make sure we’re watching a 2019 WWE show.
What Will Happen: Ricochet might as well have come out with a shirt that said TRANSITIONAL CHAMPION on the front of it. Samoa Joe only lost the title because they needed someone to feud with Kofi over the WWE Championship on short notice, and AJ Styles just turned heel and is tasked with rehabilitating the Good Brothers. If this ends any way other than Styles murking Ricochet and then everyone beating him down 3-on-1 after the match for good measure, I’ll be surprised. Bonus points if it leads to Ricochet forming some meaningful alliances of his own in response over the next few weeks.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – What a match this is going to be. I’ve got Ricochet, but expecting some shenanigans from The Club.
Emily Pratt – Ricochet’s U.S. title run must die so The Club can live. Unless the interference gets too goofy, this should be a great match.
Elle Collins – Ricochet’s the best, but I think AJ takes that belt here, probably with help from Gallows and Anderson, to begin his heel reign of terror.
Last Man Standing Match: Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley
What Should Happen: How smart is it to find out you’ve got a “ruptured spleen” (for the second time) and then go into a Last Man Standing match against a guy whose signature move is sprinting directly at your spleen? Especially when you hurt yourself trying to run into him the last time? Braun Strowman’s been DOA since at least WrestleMania 34, so I’m rooting for The All Mighty to rip out that spleen and show it to him, Mola Ram-style.
What Will Happen: In all seriousness, Strowman feels like he’s been dealing with nagging injuries for a long time and keeps getting stuck in these “anything goes” type matches where he can just jog around the ring a little and then explode in a stunt. It seems weird to run this match after a 30 minute set implosion on Raw — the spot that you’d end a Last Man Standing match like this with, honestly — if you didn’t have a good followup idea, so I’m counting on there being very little wrestling of any kind, and Braun shoving a lit stick of dynamite into Bobby’s chest and throwing him off a roof, or whatever.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – I’ve got Lashley in this one, who seems like he could really use a win.
Emily Pratt – A win for this match is if they somehow top the insane opening to the Heyman Raw and anything else will be a disappointment. I hope it’s 20 seconds long and one of them runs over the other with a semi truck or something.
Elle Collins – I try my best not to get too negative in these prediction posts, but how do you expect me to care about a Last Man Standing Match between Strowman and Lashley, in which the winner gets nothing, when this space could have been filled with the IIconics fighting the Kabuki Warriors for the Women’s Tag Team Championship? I can’t. I can’t pretend this is okay. Hopefully this match ends early with another bananas spot like on Raw last week, but even if it does we’ve been led here by a series of bafflingly wrong choices. Anyway, Lashley wins I guess.
Raw Tag Team Championship Match: The Revival (c) vs. The Usos
What Should Happen: These two teams should have a match so good we forget how absolutely turd-like everything involving them has been for the past few months. It’s still mind-boggling to me that Raw has two of the very best tag teams in the history of the company DYING to have great matches together, and is like, “okay, this week you laugh because you saw one of them shaving the other’s back. Also we’ve got some great ideas about what would happen if you put Icy Hot on their dicks.”
What Will Happen: I actually hope this gets bumped to the pre-show, where it can get 20 random minutes between “expert analysis” and get in work. Raw needs a red hot reminder that tag team wrestling is the best thing pro wrestling does, and that they should maybe kinda sorta finally do something with all the great tag teams they hired, put through NXT, and brought up just to immediately forget.
There’s also a part of me that wants them to unify the tag team divisions, and there’s probably not a better way to do that than giving the Usos the Raw titles, having New Day win the Smackdown titles, and then giving them a unification match at SummerSlam.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – The Revival have new shirts, which means I’m going with the Top Guys to keep the belts.
Emily Pratt – What a weird feud it has been for these teams, but they could easily have the best match of the show. I’ll guess Raw becomes the Uso Penitentiary.
Elle Collins – I think the Usos probably win here. Even since the Revival won the belts, WWE hasn’t been great at treating them like actual top guys, so I suspect that experiment’s probably over.
Triple Threat Match for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship: Daniel Bryan and Rowan (c) vs. The New Day vs. Heavy Machinery
What Should Happen: Not to repeat myself, but …
There’s also a part of me that wants them to unify the tag team divisions, and there’s probably not a better way to do that than giving the Usos the Raw titles, having New Day win the Smackdown titles, and then giving them a unification match at SummerSlam.
What Will Happen: That, I hope. I’m also okay with Daniel Bryan being champion long enough to realize he should have eco-friendly tag belts. What, you don’t want 400 more of my dollars for a thing that costs 10 bucks to make?
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – This seems like the right spot for Heavy Machinery to win the belts. But since Otis earned the pinfall on Tuesday, I’m scared off and going with the New Day.
Emily Pratt – I’m very into this match-up! It looks like the skills and personalities and creativity of all these wrestlers will probably really compliment each other! Bryan and Rowan retain!
Elle Collins – I don’t think it’s Heavy Machinery’s time yet, and while I could see the New Day winning so they have three belts to carry around, I can’t figure out where Daniel Bryan would go next if that happens. So I’m predicting Bryan and Rowan, but honestly I’d be okay with anybody winning.
No Holds Barred: The Undertaker and Roman Reigns vs. Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre
What Should Happen: Honestly, all I want from this match is a new version of the Indy Taker where Undertaker gets Shane up for a Tombstone, and Roman does a Superman Punch to Shane’s ass to spike it.
What Will Happen: Undertaker and Roman Reigns have a new t-shirt christening them THE GRAVEYARD DOGS (seriously, that’s not a joke), so what better way to put over Shane McMahon than by having two of the biggest stars in WWE history do the Fusion Dance just to lose to him? At this point Shane’s 3-0 against Miz and 2-0 against Roman, but he needs to get his win back against the Undertaker, Hogan-style. So I’m predicting Roman gets incapacitated somehow, McIntyre hits three Claymores on Undertaker, and then Shane hits a sweaty dropkick and pins him. Then Undertaker can get mad at Roman about it, for some reason, and the Graveyard Dogs can go the way of Y2AJ heading into SummerSlam.
Note: this also frees up Shane McMahon to win the WWE Championship.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – Maybe The Undertaker is the one to end Shane McMahon’s television run? Going with Reigns and ‘Taker here.
Emily Pratt – It’s insane that this match is happening but I’m fascinated by the idea of the Undertaker and Roman Reigns playing off each other. My main hope for this match is that they act like a tag team for at least a few moments. My other main hope is that it’s Roman who pins Shane rather than Taker, but it’ll definitely be Taker who pins the unstoppable sweaty juggernaut that is Shane McMahon.
Elle Collins – My prediction is that Roman and Drew do a lot of work to make an aging non-wrestler and an even older wrestler look as good as they possibly can, but the match never actually becomes anything to write home about. As far as who wins, I’m going to assume it’s Shane until WWE proves otherwise.
Handicap Match for the Smackdown Women’s Championship: Bayley (c) vs Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross
What Should Happen: The best way to move this story to its next chapter, especially if Alexa Bliss can’t seem to shake injury and illness, is to reveal that Nikki Cross is the one manipulating Bliss. It’s the only way to proceed without (1) making Cross look like an idiot for not accepting the free advice of everyone she works with, or (2) making the rest of the division look like assholes for constantly trying to break up a real friendship. Cross as the villain allows her to win the championship here via nefarious means, take back her promise about being “co-champions” with Alexa to selfishly hold it on her own, and reposition Bliss for a face run (I guess) when she’s actually, completely well.
What Will Happen: Cross wins the match, tries to celebrate her co-championship win, and Bliss pie-faces her and tells her the match was originally just Bliss vs. Bayley, so she’s the champion by herself. I hope they do something more ambitious than that, but sometimes the most obvious thing is the idea the old man likes. If they go the co-champions route, I hope they at least bring back LayCool to feud with them for claiming they’re the first.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – Nikki Cross winning the belt here and sharing it with Alexa Bliss seems like the move. Picking Cross to earn the win.
Emily Pratt – Handicap matches for championships make me sad, especially here when it’s for the Smackdown Women’s Championship, which has been so hot for the better part of a year. I’d rather see Bayley retain, but I’ll predict that Bliss wins and doesn’t become co-champions with Cross, leading to a Bliss-Cross feud with a lot of potential.
Elle Collins – The whole point of making Bayley defend her title in a handicap match is so that she can overcome the odds and stay champion. WWE has finally been treating Bayley more or less like she deserves to be treated, and I can’t let myself believe that they’ll stop now.
WWE Championship Match: Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Samoa Joe
What Should Happen: Honestly, as much as I like Kofi and his strong championship run (where he’s defeated Sami Zayn and Dolph Ziggler on loop), every part of my wrestling fandom wants Samoa Joe to finally have a moment. Better yet, have Joe win, have Lesnar try to cash in on him, and have Joe kick his ass about it. I just want to be able to say Samoa Joe is WWE Champion at some point in my life, to make 2005 me happy.
What Will Happen: Joe is always a bridesmaid, never a bride, and we’re too close to SummerSlam to give Kofi Kingston’s WWE Championship run an ending on a B-plus Player PPV. I say Kofi wins, possibly by outside interference (which they like to do), botched outside interference from Dolph Ziggler because it “should’ve been him” (which they ALSO like to do), or Joe stepping in a pothole or something and spending the post-match looking surprised about how he lost again.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – Kingston’s run as WWE champ likely isn’t ending with Joe, but this seems like a good spot to play hot potato with the belt. Picking Joe as the shocker here.
Emily Pratt – I would have no hope for Joe if it wasn’t for that report about Kofi being possibly being injured. Hopefully, that doesn’t impact that quality of the match too much and we get to see these two do their 2019 bests, which are very good.
Elle Collins – I don’t want Kofi’s reign to end just yet, but Samoa Joe is one of the better people who could take the belt off of him, so I’m conflicted. That said, my actual prediction is that Kofi retains, although I don’t expect the feud to end here.
Winner Take All Mixed Tag Team Match for the Universal and Raw Women’s Championships: Seth Rollins (c) and Becky Lynch (c) vs. Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans
What Should Happen: Speaking of putting the energy you don’t want to see out into the world,
https://twitter.com/MrBrandonStroud/status/1149413521983254529
Sometimes I like to type nihilistic tweets like this in the hope that it IS the idea, but someone in creative stumbles upon the tweet and is like, “oh no they figured it out, we better do something else.” I would also like to ruin someone’s idea of having Lesnar cash in and “win all,” since that’s the stipulation of the match, and randomly have the Raw Women’s Championship somehow. He could give it to Sable, and then Becky can feud with another person that looks like that.
What Will Happen: An actual Lesnar cash-in seems more likely for SummerSlam or the first episode of Smackdown on Fox, so in the best timeline, Becky Lynch wins the match for her team by hitting a Curb Stomp on Lacey Evans and tapping out Baron Corbin in the Disarmer. Seth can just stand on the apron making happy faces about it. Please don’t give us Universal Champion Baron Corbin and Raw Women’s Champion Lacey Evans on an already struggling 3-hour wrestling show, WWE, I beg of you.
Staff Picks
Raj Prashad – I’ve got Rollins and Lynch running away with this one.
Emily Pratt – WWE TV is trying to be more edgy and appeal to teens again, right? Well, what better way to do that than with these eight words: Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans live sex celebration.
Elle Collins – It has to be Seth and Becky. It’s bad enough that these two champions have been trapped in feuds with these two losers who nobody likes, and put into this relationship storyline that neither of them seems entirely comfortable with. Actually taking the belts off them in a match like this would be ridiculous even by WWE standards. Hopefully this will be the end of the whole mess, and the Man and her man can go back to doing something worthwhile, and ideally pretending not to know each other on television.
Here’s another picture of Shane McMahon, since we haven’t talked about him enough.
That’s what we think will go down at Extreme Rules. What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below. It’s a Call To Action™! And as always, make sure you’re here this weekend for our open discussion thread, live results, Best and Worst of Extreme Rules column, and more.
