After trying to catch up on RAW and Smackdown today, then deciding it was really not worth it, I started to flip through Extreme Rules. After reconcidering the card didn’t seem all too bad, and it started good with the B-Team picking up the RAW Tag titles. These guys are kind of fun, though not much more than a distraction.
However, quickly followed a couple of huge disappointments. First of all, they continue to absolutely destroy Asuka’s reputation that they built for two freaking years by having her lose again to Carmella. Of course it wasn’t clean, but the “cheat” was also not really sufficiently believable considering what she overcame in NXT.
Then Nakamura cleverly gained the U.S. title by low-blowing Jeff Hardy while the ref handed the belt off to the ring attendant. Then when the bell rang he immediately hit a Kinshasa. I mean, that was kind of clever, but why the fuck you needed this on a PPV I have no idea. Afterward Randy Orton came out, stared down Nakamura, then stomps Hardy in the nuts and just leaves. Again: Why?
Roman Reigns lost. Good. The Smackdown Tag title match was kind of worthless. Corbin vs. Balor I skipped entirely. Why Alexa Bliss is still RAW women’s champion I have no idea.
I decided to watch the whole cage match between Owens and Strowman, and it was rather fun. Strowman runs through people and Owens is more than willing to take the punishment. It finished with Owens “winning” by getting chokeslammed off the top of the cage through the announce table.
Rusev vs. Styles was pretty decent. It was kind of weird that Styles worked kind of heel in this, isolating a limb and continuously attacking it, while Rusev struggled through that damage. Rusev had the help of Aiden English, but that rather backfired as well.
Finally there was the only match I was really counting on with Rollins vs. Ziggler. Why they decided they needed to take the title off Rollins is beyond me. One of the last matches I watched on RAW was a very excellent match between the two after that, only for WWE deciding that it didn’t deserve a proper ending and have Drew McIntyre get involved.
This match was kind of weird. First they started with a “catch you by surprise” sequence which made no sense after the first two or so pin attempts. Then Seth goes up by two falls by really standard sequences, which made look Dolph really bad. Then McIntyre gets involved, gets Seth another fall by DQ before continuing his attack. Instead of giving another DQ, the ref kicks McIntyre out, which he follows for some reason. Ziggler then picks up three quick falls mostly off of McIntyre’s assault, and somehow another one in the middle.
In the end Rollins picks up another fall from pretty much nothing. Rollins then finally manages to hit Ziggler with a stomp, only to crawl into a pin too late and time expires. It is announced that the match ends in a 4-4 draw and Ziggler retains, leaving me to scream “WHY!” at my monitor. What a waste of time.
And during the entire match pretty much, the crowd chanted “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” whenever the clock reached those ahead of every minute mark. This was fun during the Rumble, but here it was just purely annoying self-gratification. I mean, there is an issue with the product when the crowd does stuff like that, but still it was also really shitty for a pretty decent match.
Meanwhile the G1 has started and the first three nights where really good, even though Gedo decided to nuke my picks in night 3 entirely, the madman.
I mean, it’s kind of bad with all those “Oh, you’re just a snob” sentiment whenever someone dares to profess that NJPW has a superior product, but just given the quality of matches it is absolutely no contest whatsoever. Basically the last three PPVs have all been stinkers and I am very much considering just abandoning WWE altogether.