For American viewers, we now seem to be firmly\u00a0in the post-PPV era. \u00a0The WWE’s website may still list these shows\u00a0under the heading of “pay-per-views”, but\u00a0American viewers can get them far more cheaply by subscribing to the Netflix-style “WWE Network”. \u00a0Would you rather pay $40 just for this show, or subscribe to the whole network\u00a0for six months at $10 a month? \u00a0The answer ought to be obvious. \u00a0Conventional PPV providers are predictably\u00a0enraged, and the satellite companies (though not the cable ones) have responded by refusing to carry the show at all. \u00a0If that seems like an odd decision, since any orders are better than none, then bear in mind\u00a0if they allow WWE to act like this, they\u00a0encourage other PPV providers to follow suit.<\/p>\n
Initial Network\u00a0subscription numbers are at the low end of expectations (and certainly at the low end of\u00a0announced<\/em> expectations, which always seemed\u00a0very bullish). \u00a0One theory is that if you didn’t subscribe for Wrestlemania, you certainly won’t be subscribing for a C-level show like this. \u00a0Another way of looking at it\u00a0is that\u00a0a large chunk of the audience just doesn’t\u00a0feel comfortable with streaming\u00a0yet,\u00a0especially as they haven’t done a particularly great job of promoting\u00a0all the devices that can access the show. \u00a0If that’s the position, then the satellite companies’ stance may just encourage more people to\u00a0take a second look at the Network.<\/p>\n Extreme Rules<\/em> is notionally still a themed show – it used to be the annual show where everything was a chaotic gimmick match, tracing its lineage back to the ECW reunion shows of a few years back. \u00a0In fact, this year’s card features fairly conventional matches, as the WWE seems finally to have realised that\u00a0gimmick matches can’t just be shoehorned into any storyline. \u00a0The reality is that this is a\u00a0standard issue C-show.<\/p>\n 1. \u00a0WWE World Heavyweight Title – Extreme Rules Match: Daniel Bryan\u00a0\u00a9 v Kane.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0As everyone expected, Daniel Bryan finally won the World Title at\u00a0Wrestlemania<\/em>, and got to keep it this time. \u00a0This forms the climax of his long chase for the title in the face of the Authority’s resistance. \u00a0As always in this situation, it begs the question –\u00a0so what do you do now that he’s won the thing?<\/p>\n Logically, it\u00a0would be the automatic rematch against Randy Orton, but we’re not getting that (notionally because Orton is in the six-man tag, though you might expect him to feel more strongly about his beloved title). \u00a0Instead Bryan kicks off his title match with a defence against Kane, his former tag partner turned\u00a0Authority henchman. \u00a0The official line is that this show has a “triple main event”, which is a nice way of saying that the world title match is not the real main event in anyone’s book. \u00a0Some have seen this as a sign that Bryan is going to suffer the usual fate of wrestlers who the company didn’t really want to make champion, namely a weak title reign followed by defeat and a return to the mid card. \u00a0And the build has certainly been shaky, based largely around a return to Kane’s “classic” masked psycho gimmick.<\/p>\n On the other hand,\u00a0while it would still make sense to do the Orton\u00a0match first, Kane does make sense as an opponent that Bryan can beat convincingly to establish himself as champion. \u00a0For years, he’s been kept strong against the roster as a whole while remaining a step below the real main eventers. \u00a0And\u00a0there are mitigating factors in the build, given that Bryan had a week off for his honeymoon,\u00a0immediately followed by the death of his father. \u00a0The match should probably be fine, and conventional wisdom is that a Bryan victory is inevitable.<\/p>\n 2. \u00a0The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns) v Evolution (Triple H, Batista & Randy Orton).<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0A\u00a0couple of months back, the Shield looked to be heading for a break-up with Roman Reigns as the emerging solo hero. \u00a0Instead,\u00a0the whole faction ended up turning babyface by rebelling against the Authority and\u00a0ceasing to act as their henchmen. \u00a0The Shield are now finally behaving as\u00a0the vigilante\u00a0justice squad they always claimed to be, and\u00a0Triple H has responded by reuniting with Batista and Orton to\u00a0put them in line. \u00a0Those three – together with Ric Flair – formed the Evolution stable a decade ago, the idea\u00a0at that point being that they represented past (Flair), present (Triple H) and future (the other two).<\/p>\n A decade down the line, of course, they represent present, past and paster, and Triple H is officially\u00a0meant to be retired. \u00a0It would certainly be a surprise if they stuck around as a\u00a0group for too long. \u00a0But\u00a0they’re all credible main eventers and so\u00a0natural opponents for the Shield. \u00a0The Shield clearly ought to come out ahead in the end, but\u00a0I can see\u00a0the company deciding that there’s more than one month’s mileage in this one –\u00a0what other\u00a0heel trios can\u00a0the Shield feud with, after all? \u00a0On paper this looks like an excellent match; either side could win but I’m tentatively going to pick Evolution.<\/p>\n 3. \u00a0Cage match: John Cena v Bray Wyatt.<\/strong> \u00a0Now this is a badly, or at least weirdly, booked storyline. \u00a0As leader of the southern-gothic\u00a0Wyatt Family cult, Bray Wyatt is a rising main eventer who’s been feuding with John Cena for a couple of months now. \u00a0At root, the idea is meant to be Cena\u00a0as the traditional hero taking on Wyatt\u00a0the charismatic cultist. \u00a0There’s a weird attempt to try and spin the crowd reaction (which has\u00a0long been divided where Cena is concerned) as evidence of Wyatt’s success,\u00a0even\u00a0though Cena’s been dividing the crowd for years before Wyatt\u00a0turned up on the scene. \u00a0And there’s a thoroughly wonky suggestion that\u00a0a victory for Cena will, in some ill-defined way, stop the spread of Wyatt’s\u00a0similarly ill-defined message.<\/p>\n All this might make sense\u00a0if Wyatt was undefeated up to this point,\u00a0and had consistently relied on his henchmen to help him\u00a0to victory. \u00a0In that scenario, Cena could at least sensibly claim that\u00a0he was going to stop Wyatt’s momentum by handing him his first high-profile defeat, and that the\u00a0steel cage stipulation would force him to fight on equal terms for once.<\/p>\n But that’s not what happened. \u00a0Wyatt beat Daniel Bryan cleanly in January, with no outside interference – so he’s not<\/em> dependent on his henchmen to beat main eventers. \u00a0And worse, Wyatt actually\u00a0lost<\/em> his first match with Cena at Wrestlemania. \u00a0If that high-profile defeat didn’t stop his momentum (which, after all, is notionally as a cult leader<\/em>, not as a wrestler), why is a loss here so important?\u00a0 It just doesn’t work as a story.<\/p>\n Fortunately, Wyatt’s theatrics have been enough to keep the plates spinning despite the plot falling over in a light breeze. \u00a0I imagine this will be a decent match. \u00a0Wyatt should probably win to set up a rubber match with something more concrete at stake, but the clumsy\u00a0booking of this storyline means anything could happen.<\/p>\n 4. \u00a0WWE Intercontinental Title: Big E\u00a0\u00a9 v Bad News Barrett.<\/strong> \u00a0Bad News Barrett is the former Wade Barrett, now rebranded. \u00a0This spins off a comedy skit he did for the WWE’s\u00a0YouTube channel, and was initially almost unwatchable, since WWE comedy in 2014 is about as funny as the Ukraine. \u00a0Fortunately, now that he’s actually wrestling again,\u00a0it’s shifted back towards simply being a catchphrase, and it’s starting to work.<\/p>\n Barrett won a tournament to get this title shot, over surprisingly tough competition\u00a0considering the IC title’s perennial mid card status. \u00a0It’s his big push following his rebranding, while Big E has done essentially nothing for a while now. \u00a0A title switch seems practically guaranteed – unless\u00a0the WWE decide it’s too predictable and take fright. \u00a0That would be\u00a0the wrong move. \u00a0The match should be fine.<\/p>\n 5. \u00a0WWE Divas Title: Paige\u00a0\u00a9 v Tamina Snuka.<\/strong> \u00a0Paige\u00a0made her unannounced debut\u00a0on\u00a0the main roster with a surprise title win over\u00a0AJ Lee the day\u00a0after Wrestlemania. \u00a0After a couple of rocky years, the WWE has now picked up on the fact that the\u00a0episode of\u00a0Raw<\/em> immediately following Wrestlemania tends to draw an unusual crowd – hardcore fans from around the world who travelled to see the big show and figured they might as well take in a TV taping while they’re in town. \u00a0Such fans are unusually well informed\u00a0and can be relied upon to react to wrestlers who would be complete unknowns to any other audience. \u00a0Paige\u00a0falls firmly into that category, as the inaugural Women’s Champion of the NXT developmental territory. \u00a0She was smartly debuted in front of the one crowd of the year that could be relied upon to recognise her from watching developmental television, and to be pleased to see her.<\/p>\n Paige’s gimmick in NXT was\u00a0supposed\u00a0to be that she was an\u00a0“anti-diva” – in practice, a kick-ass goth who rejected the house style of the women’s division. \u00a0This got her over as a babyface, which says a lot about what the NXT audience thinks about the main roster women’s division.<\/p>\n On the main roster, she seems to be positioned more as the humble rookie, which I’m not sure plays to her strengths as well. \u00a0Logically she’d be facing AJ in a rematch, but AJ’s on leave for whatever reason, so we’re getting her sidekick Tamina Snuka instead. \u00a0Paige will undoubtedly retain, but\u00a0at least she’s getting a match against one of the proper wrestlers on the roster. \u00a0It’ll be kept short – the women’s matches almost always are.<\/p>\n 6. \u00a0Handicap match: Alexander Rusev v R-Truth & Xavier Woods.<\/strong> \u00a0Rusev is the latest\u00a0Eastern European monster heel,\u00a0as yet unbeaten since coming up to the main roster. \u00a0He will be facing – and almost certainly beating – two low-card babyfaces. \u00a0R-Truth must be wondering how his career came to this. \u00a0 There’s no point in having a heel face two babyfaces unless he’s going to win and demonstrate his dominance; nobody\u00a0gains from the reverse result. \u00a0This will be short and uninteresting in itself; the point of putting it on PPV is to send a message about\u00a0Rusev mattering, not to actually take up much time on the show itself.<\/p>\n Rusev is genuinely Bulgarian, as billed. \u00a0His “social ambassador” Lana is not genuinely Russian but deserves marks for committing to the role. \u00a0(She did live in\u00a0Latvia as a child,\u00a0which might explain why her Russian at least sounds passably convincing to the non-speaker.)<\/p>\n 7. \u00a0Triple Threat Elimination Match:\u00a0Rob Van Dam v Jack Swagger v Cesaro.<\/strong> \u00a0This appears to be the final resolution of the Real Americans’ break-up angle, with RVD added to get a babyface into the match (and to lend it a bit of bonus credibility). \u00a0Cesaro is in an odd position right now, having broken from the heel Real Americans’ faction in a way that appeared to set him up for a babyface turn. \u00a0But\u00a0instead he allied with heel manager Paul Heyman, yet continued to feud with\u00a0his ex-partner. \u00a0He’s sending mixed signals, in other words, and it’s not clear at this stage whether he’s merely halfway through an extended turn, or stuck in\u00a0tweener limbo. \u00a0It has the potential to be a decent undercard match. \u00a0I’d guess Cesaro wins, since he seems to be the top priority right now.<\/p>\n 8. \u00a0Pre-show – Wee LC Match: El Torito v Hornswoggle.<\/strong> \u00a0Oh god. \u00a0Midget comedy. \u00a0A Wee LC match is (presumably) a TLC match with miniature weapons. \u00a0I find this stuff virtually unwatchable, and not through any lack of talent on Torito’s part, either. \u00a0Obviously he knew what he was in for when he signed on for a company\u00a0employing one other midget who’s been playing a leprechaun for years, but still, what a waste. \u00a0Fortunately, this is airing on the pre-show, which isn’t available in the UK, so I can pretend it isn’t happening.<\/p>\n Worth buying?<\/strong> \u00a0It’s actually\u00a0a pretty decent card now that I run it down. \u00a0I don’t see any obvious classics here but\u00a0everything on the main roster has\u00a0the potential to be at least decent (except for the handicap match, which will be five minutes at a push).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For American viewers, we now seem to be firmly\u00a0in the post-PPV era. \u00a0The WWE’s website may still list these shows\u00a0under the heading of “pay-per-views”, but\u00a0American viewers can get them far more cheaply by subscribing to the Netflix-style “WWE Network”. \u00a0Would you rather pay $40 just for this show, or subscribe to the whole network\u00a0for six 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