Extreme Rules (2019) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their Raw, SmackDown, and 205 Live brands. It took place on July 14, 2019, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the eleventh event under the Extreme Rules chronology.
The card comprised thirteen matches, including two on the pre-show. In an impromptu main event, Brock Lesnar cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on Seth Rollins to win the Universal Championship for a record third time, right after Rollins and Raw Women's Champion Becky Lynch had retained their respective titles against Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans in a Last Chance Winners Take All Extreme Rules mixed tag team match. In other prominent matches, Kofi Kingston retained the WWE Championship against Samoa Joe, AJ Styles defeated Ricochet to win his third United States Championship, The New Day's Big E and Xavier Woodsdefeated Heavy Machinery (Otis and Tucker) and former champions Daniel Bryan and Rowan to win the SmackDown Tag Team Championship for a record-tying fourth-time, and The Undertaker and Roman Reigns defeated Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre in a No Holds Barred tag team match in the opening bout.
Note: I know some of these matches are out of order, but I'm writing this out from memory. So you have my apologies in that aspect.
Kick-Off Show: WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
Shinsuke Nakamura def. Finn Bálor
Kick-Off Show: WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match
Drew Gulak (c) def. Tony Nese
Roman Reigns & The Undertaker def. Drew McIntyre & Shane McMahon
I was surprised at first that they would open the show with The Undertaker, but after I thought about it more, I guess he didn't want to have the anxiety and pressure of having a dud of match close the show again like he did on the last Saudi show with Goldberg. This match played out very well. They played it smart and to Taker's limitations as they cut him off while allowing Roman to do most of the heavy lifting until they needed Taker to do his trademark spots.
Outside of that spot towards the end where Taker struggled to get Shane up for the Tombstone, I thought this was an excellent performance for Taker. If they are going to do Taker versus Drew next, then I'm all for it if he wants to do the honors and get McIntyre over to the next level. The rumor mill AKA dirtsheets are saying that Taker wants to do that match for WrestleMania next year, but I can't see WWE waiting that long. From the teases in this match right here, I can easily see this being a marquee match on the upcoming Summerslam card.
RAW Tag Team Championship Match
The Revival (c) def. The Usos
I can't complain when it comes to these two teams squaring off. I would have been happy with either team going over here. I have to wonder if The Revival are actually going to renew their contracts or not when their deals are up. It seems like WWE are bending over backwards to try to make them happy in the meantime. As for the Usos, they seem to be "on lock" (no pun intended) for a very long time with WWE and I don't blame them.
2-on-1 Handicap Match for SmackDown! Women's Championship - Bayley (c) def. Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss
The majority of this match was fucking boring. This would have fared better on the preshow/kick-off or better yet, on Monday Night RAW tomorrow night. The biggest takeaway here is that Bliss wasn't pinned, so she could easily point the blame on her so-called best friend and have her own agenda in terms of a rematch. I really liked the double submission spot towards the end, with the callback to Sasha Banks' Banks Statement applied on Bliss with the leglock on Nikki.
Wrestling With Wregret brought up an excellent question on Twitter during the show that I didn't realize until now.
Even when Ronda Rousey was on the warpath last year, Bliss got beat but she never wasn't written off nor portrayed weak even while injured. That's something I didn't think much of until now. After some of the stuff that shed light upon about Bliss in her WWE 24 special, I can't help but suspect that there's a bit of favoritism for her over a lot of the other women in the company. This is looking like the AJ Lee situation all over again.
Aleister Black def. Cesaro
This was essentially a rematch from their days in the wXw promotion in the United Kingdom roughly ten years ago when they were still going by their Tommy End and Claudio Castagnoli names in their pre-WWE tenures. Call me biased, but I thought this was the best match on this entire show from bell to bell. The right man won clean, but it still brings up a glaring question. WHY THE FUCK ISN'T CESARO POSITIONED AS A MAIN EVENT TALENT IN THIS COMPANY???!!!
Don't give me that brass ring quote from Vince McMahon on the Stone Cold podcast either. This dude has grabbed every brass ring that this company has waved in front of him, making shitty gimmicks and partnerships into chicken salad on a regular basis. This guy busted his teeth out for this company and came back to work the next week without taking time off, looking for more. His wife works there and it's obvious that he's not going anywhere, but toss the man a bone. There's nothing to lose on taking a chance on this guy.
Braun Strowman def. Bobby Lashley
I'm usually not a fan of big man matches, but this was actually better than I thought it was going to be starting off. The brawling around the arena was a bit hit or miss, but I enjoyed this match for the most part. I couldn't help but laugh at the finish where Braun Strowman did his best impression of the Kool-Aid Man bursting out of that box that they both fell into. This seemed like something out of the same vein of Matanza Cueto and Mil Muertes' first collison, but I'm glad that Strowman emerged as the winner. WWE damaged that dude's street cred enough over the past year and it's long overdue that they remedied that. He's not as far gone as someone like Ziggler, so there's hope to redeem him in the eyes of the fans. Lashley can easily shake off this loss too, but I honestly can see him leaving WWE again once his contract expires if he doesn't get that match with Lesnar that he essentially came back for.
WWE Championship Match
Kofi Kingston (c) def. Samoa Joe
If I was Samoa Joe, I would be just like Dean Ambrose/Jon Moxley, counting down the days when my contract expires. It's painfully obvious that this company has remotely no idea how to use this guy. This loss makes a whooping record of EIGHT WWE Universal and WWE Championship challenges that he's failed to capitalize on in losing efforts. It's the same song and dance - Joe talks a strong game but ultimately drops the ball when it matters most. Not to mention that WWE has made his submission hold pretty much laughable at this point. The only Samoan named Joe that they are firmly behind making a main eventer is Roman Reigns and you can easily BELIEVE THAT.
As for Kofi's WWE title reign, I'm not going to knock WWE's booking of Kofi as a legitimate threat. They've done an excellent job since WrestleMania giving him a lot of convincing wins against everyone lined up in his way. My major issue with him is he's just damn fucking boring in this role. Everyone was firmly behind him in support when he was in the chase going into WrestleMania as no one didn't think that WWE was going to actually put the title on him in the first place or consider him at all. It was a happy accident from Mustafa Ali's unfortunate injury that led to that turn of events. I'm happy to see one of my own kind win it big in WWE, but let's all be real here - the honeymoon is over. People aren't clamouring to see Kofi Kingston as champion nor are they filling up the arenas as a result. That could be said for all three of the top main eventers of the company right now, actually, but Kofi is the eye sore that sticks out more than the rest.
United States Championship Match
AJ Styles (w/ Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson) def. Ricochet (c)
Great match and excellent use of the Club at ringside here. They didn't come off as the crutch that Styles needed to win, but gave Styles the sprinkle of heel heat he needed to make this turn convincing. Besides, Ricochet didn't need the belt at this point. It's better to have him in the chase.
Triple Threat Match for SmackDown! Tag Team Championships
The New Day (Big E and Xavier Woods) def. Heavy Machinery and Daniel Bryan & Erick Rowen (c)
When commentary pointed out that New Day could be walking out of this PPV with all of the gold, I should have foreseen that they would have won this match. Nonetheless, it still pissed me off. WWE has so many great tag teams signed, especially some called up from NXT that they have been doing absolutely jackshit with outside of comedy segments, but they flock to the tired-and-true New Day gimmick as the ones who need to carry the gold. I'm not knocking the New Day's ability in the ring as all three of them are gifted athletes, but c'mon. Give someone else a chance to establish themselves in this tag division. At this point, New Day should be putting over other teams like the Usos have been doing on occasion. Heavy Machinery shouldn't get the gold right off the bat either, but I wouldn't have minded seeing Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowen hold the belts for a bit longer. You would think that Bryan would want to stick in a tag team a bit longer to work easier on his body.
Kevin Owens def. Dolph Ziggler in a squash
I thought I was going to be able to get a bathroom break at this point, but as soon as I stood up this match was over. After laughing hysterically about it, I came to the conclusion that this is exactly how Ziggler should be used at this stage of the game. He's too stupid to realize that his worth has been squandered in this company, yet renewed his contract, so let him lay in the bed of nails that he made for himself. I'm fed up with feeling sorry for him at this point. If WWE wants to continue the course with this rebel-type direction for Kevin Owens then I'm all for it. It worked for Becky Lynch last year, so I don't see the problem with it here. Just pick up the breadcrumbs where CM Punk left off about challenging the Authority at every turn and pointing out their bullshit and he'll EASILY keep people eating out of his hands with this babyface/tweener turn.
Winner Takes All - No Holds Barred Tag Team Match
WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins (c) and RAW Women's Champion Becky Lynch (c) def. Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans to retain
Before I proceed to shit on this match, I want to applaud the production values in that video package to highlight the feud that led into this match. That was some of WWE's best work there on display. Say what you will about the company as a whole, but when they want to sell you these big matches like a big deal, there's no one else who does it better - outside of maybe UFC or New Japan...
I thought the vast majority of this match was a waste of time as we've seen all four of these individuals butt heads in matches for what seemed like an eternity in the months and weeks following WrestleMania. This was just more of the same with the Extreme Rules stipulation attached. It got to a point where I just drowned the commentary team out of my mind in terms of listening to them ATTEMPT to explain the rules of this match when there's no rules in an Extreme Rules match.
Even though they tried to sell the narrative that men couldn't attack the women and vice versa, I applaud Becky Lynch for selling the shit out of that End of Days towards the end of the match. She took that better than most of the guys do. Of course that set off Rollins quicker than Krillin's death at the hands of Frieza in Dragon Ball Z and he hit a whooping THREE Curb Stomps on Corbin to pick up the victory for his team.
Brock Lesnar cashes in Money in the Bank and defeats Seth Rollins to become the NEW WWE Universal Champion for the third time
(Laughs) I'm not even mad to be quite honest. At this point, it was obvious that it was beneath Brock to go after Kofi's championship, especially after how WWE made a big deal about this was the first time that the New Day would all have championship gold. We all knew that would've went down just like Beast in the East if Brock came fishing for the New Day's titles. On top of that, WWE dodged the bullet on the least likely scenario of having the fans turn on them in that situation anyway.
At the same time, I absolutely LOVE Bryan Alvarez's proposed idea that he pitched for how Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch could have fought off Brock's cash-in together while simultaneously getting both of them over as megastars. Such a missed opportunity in that regard.
At the end of the day, Brock caught Rollins with his pants down and capitalized on his shortcomings. It's as simple as that. I'm just curious to see where they go with this from here.
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