Since I was out of the country for Wrestlemania, it’s been a couple of months since I’ve written one of these PPV previews.  And we return with a show that is not exactly a classic.

“Extreme Rules” is a lame duck show for several reasons.  First, it’s the show that has to follow Wrestlemania.  It’s the time of year when the company goes into a rebuilding phase, having completed its major storylines and not given much thought to the new ones.  Often that results in a show full of desultory rematches to tie up loose ends.

Second, this is the show that started life as “ECW One Night Stand”, and then went on to become a themed show full of (supposedly) ultra-violent gimmick matches.  But the WWE has moved away from that sort of thing in recent years, partly in order to keep their TV PG-rated (which goes down well with the sponsors and toy license holders), and partly because the long-term injury rate to wrestlers just wasn’t worth it.  So “Extreme Rules” has drifted some way from its roots; it’s still a show full of gimmick matches, but not necessarily ones that are particularly out of the ordinary.

And third, the WWE did its annual “draft” on Monday to reallocate the wrestlers between the Raw and Smackdown roster.  The draft wasn’t supposed to come until later in the year, but it was rushed forward after Edge, the Smackdown champion, got some apparently terrifying MRI results and immediately announced his retirement.  Unlike wrestlers of yesteryear, Edge apparently likes the idea of spending his remaining years upright and with feeling in his arms, and who can blame him?  But without Edge, Smackdown was very light on star power, so they brought forward the draft.  The side effect, however, is that we know some of these matches are between wrestlers who are being split up.  That means the storyline has to end – and that pretty much gives away the ending.

The draft should, in theory, have introduced more drama to one match – but the commentators haven’t been pushing that angle.  We’ll come to that shortly.  But first…

1.  WWE Title, steel cage match: The Miz v. John Cena v. John Morrison. At Wrestlemania, the Miz retained his title over John Cena following interference by the Rock.  The good news is that this set up a match between Cena and the Rock, which should be a big draw.  The bad news is that the Cena/Rock match is at Wrestlemania 2012, and in the meantime they’ve got to go back to the Miz/Cena feud.  While Miz himself has been doing fine, the storyline has inevitably cast him as a third wheel, even though he’s the champion.

Somebody must have figured that they couldn’t just do Miz/Cena again without the Rock.  So instead, here’s Miz/Cena/A.N. Other.  Originally the third wrestler was midcard babyface R-Truth.  That was met with general bafflement, since Truth had done pretty much nothing of significance in years.  It made rather more sense when Truth lost his title shot to Morrison and promptly turned heel – evidently the company is trying to reinvigorate his tired character, and he may well be better cast in the heel role.

Morrison is an athletic upper midcard babyface who’s had a title shot before, but has yet to really break through to the top tier.  He’s got the look, he’s got the moves, but there’s something a little stiff about his delivery that he needs to sort out before he can cut it as a headliner, I think.  Still, he’s good value in a match, and in theory there ought to be the added dimension that, when he was a heel, he had a long-running tag team with Miz.  (But again, they’ve not really done much with that.)

Who should win?  Well, it’s certainly not the time for Morrison.  Miz is running out of opponents; he can’t keep fighting Cena, and the only fresh challenger from the draft is Rey Mysterio.  A Cena win also feels a bit anticlimactic; he’s been champion many times before.  But the company clearly sees him as the star of the show, and he has possible fresh opponents in Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk.  My guess would be that Cena gets the title tomorrow, though I’m not sure anyone’s that desperate to see it.

2.  World Heavyweight Title, ladder match: Christian v. Alberto Del Rio. This is the title vacated by Edge.  At Wrestlemania, Edge and Alberto Del Rio’s match was bizarrely relegated to the opening slot, where Edge won quickly.  This was supposed to be a rematch, but with Edge’s sudden retirement, his longtime partner Christian has been plugged into the slot.  This at least explains why Christian was hanging around on the fringes of the Edge/Del Rio feud in the run-up to Wrestlemania; with hindsight, the writers may have been hedging their bets.

Christian is always good, and he’s got tons of experience with ladder matches.  Del Rio’s style is more mat based and the gimmick doesn’t obviously play to his strengths, but I’m sure these two can have a very good match.  But who wins?  Christian obviously wasn’t the original plan.  Yet Del Rio was drafted to Raw on Monday.  So if he wins the title, Raw gets both the world titles and Smackdown has none (though it’s inexplicably ended up with both of the B-level titles).

Does that rule out the possibility of Del Rio winning?  They haven’t been playing up the idea that both titles could go to Raw, which might suggest they’re not trying to do that story.  Christian could certainly carry Smackdown in the short-term.  But they’ve sent Randy Orton over to be Smackdown’s new top babyface, so it would be an odd start to put the world title on somebody further down the pecking order.  It’s hard to figure quite where they’re going with this one, but my bet would be on Del Rio winning.  Smackdown remains curiously light on main event heels, so I wouldn’t be entirely shocked if something happens to send more wrestlers back over there.

3.  Last Man Standing: Randy Orton v. CM Punk. This is a straight rematch from Wrestlemania, where Randy Orton already won clean.  But now we’re doing it again.  Because we just are.

The storyline at Wrestlemania was that Orton had succeeded in defeating all Punk’s cronies from the New Nexus, finally got to face Punk alone, and beat him.  Since Wrestlemania, the New Nexus have been brought back (surprisingly, since a couple of them clearly aren’t ready for prime time), so in theory Punk ought to have the upper hand here.  But Orton was drafted to Smackdown and that means the feud has to end here.  Given that, Orton really has to win.

The match should be solid, but the ending is highly predictable.

4.  Falls Count Anywhere: Rey Mysterio v. Cody Rhodes. Another Wrestlemania rematch.  Rhodes, the heel, won at Wrestlemania.  And these two are also being split up in the draft, with Rey Mysterio going to Raw.  So again, you’d think Mysterio had to win.  That said, this whole storyline was clearly designed to repackage Cody Rhodes and elevate him as a heel.  He really does need the win more than Mysterio, so this is an odd case where it might be worth letting the heel get the last laugh and win decisively over a higher-ranking babyface.

Until a couple of months ago, Rhodes was doing the deliberately corny gimmick of “Dashing” Cody Rhodes, the idea being that he was handsome and vain.  Obviously that’s not a main event persona, so the basic idea is that after Mysterio breaks his nose in a match, Rhodes goes nuts, becomes irrationally convinced that he’s now hideously deformed, and sets out for revenge.  Rather than give him dodgy make-up or a traditional mask, they’ve taken the interesting approach of giving him a transparent protective facemask which flattens the skin and distorts his appearance slightly.  (They’ve also slowed down and messed up his theme music, which is a nice touch.)  If you accept that the basic idea is that Cody is mad, it kind of works.  It has to be said that the commentary generally seems to assume that he really is horribly scarred.  But that approach founders on the technicality that he visibly isn’t.  Honestly, guys, if I were you, I’d play the madness card here.

Smackdown desperately needs credible heels; Rhodes desperately needs credibility; Mysterio is pretty much bulletproof at this point in his career.  So Rhodes ought to win.  Bet he won’t, though.

5.  “Country whipping match”: Jack Swagger & Michael Cole v. Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler. The Michael Cole storyline meanders onwards, as the WWE seems to find itself caught in a dilemma.  They’ve spent months on the feud between Cole and Lawler, the two main commentators on Raw.  Jack Swagger, a midcard heel from Smackdown, was inserted into the feud at Wrestlemania so that somebody could handle the physical side of the feud.  (Lawler, a semi-retired wrestler, doesn’t need the help.)  However, as I understand it, what Cole and Lawler actually did at Wrestlemania was an overextended match that wasn’t desperately entertaining, and which ended with Cole winning on a technicality.

This rematch extends the feud to encompass Lawler’s former partner Jim Ross, still without question the best wrestling commentator around, but not entirely in line with the WWE’s brand identity.  Quite why anyone would book Jim Ross in a match is something of a mystery, since he’s never claimed to be any sort of wrestler.  Even the angles to set up this match have resulted in legitimate injuries to both Ross and Cole.  But the real problem for the WWE is that it’s hard to see how you end this storyline without booting Cole off the show and triumphantly restoring Jim Ross to his rightful place – something which the company absolutely does not want to do, even though it would probably improve the show, and Cole could still be used effectively as a commentator on Smackdown or even as a heel general manager.  At this stage, Cole is arguably of more value to the company as a character than a commentator.  But the company doesn’t like climbing down…

The match is likely to be terrible.  Since there’s nothing at stake, it can’t end the feud – but Cole technically won at Wrestlemania, so I suppose Lawler ought to win here in order to build to a tie-breaker with something decisive on the line.

6.  No count-out, no DQ, loser leaves WWE: Michelle McCool v Layla El. This is the break-up angle for Team LayCool, who’ve been the main heel duo in the women’s division for months now.  The basic gimmick is that they’re overgrown playground bullies.  To be honest, the act probably had some more life in it.  But the decision has been taken to break them up, and it looks as though Layla is getting the babyface role.  That seems like smart casting to me; I think she’s got more natural charisma, she’s easier to root for, and her wrestling has come on quite a bit (bearing in mind that standards in the women’s division these days are not stellar).

Originally this was announced as “loser leaves Smackdown” (in other words, loser goes to Raw), but it’s belatedly been changed to “loser leaves WWE”.  According to WrestlingObserver.com, the rumour is that McCool is quitting the company.  I don’t expect wonders from this, but if they can pull off the idea of a long-standing heel finally being vanquished (albeit by her own sidekick), this might work.

Worth getting? I’d skip it.  There are two very dodgy looking matches in here, and another couple that are highly predictable.  Plus, there’s a lot of recycling of matches we only saw last month.  There’s a bit more curiosity value in the two title matches, but all told it’s filling a space on the schedule.