Instant Reaction - WWE Extreme Rules PPV 5/19
By Benjamin Tucker, PWTorch TV specialist

Overall Score - 7.0

Extreme Rules wasn't a spectacle, but it did surpass expectations. There was only one true dud on the card, with everything else being above average. That being said, on a show where Randy Orton vs. Big Show was potentially the match of the night, it becomes painfully obvious that nothing was a Match of the Year candidate. Good, yes. Great, no.

So yeah, Show-Orton was in my opinion the best match of the show. It had a surprisingly good pace and psychology to it with really nice nearfalls. Orton looked really motivated and played to the crowd better than he ever has. Both guys looked good and told a nice story throughout. You will be hard pressed to find a better Big Show match, and considering how they've currently been on WWE TV this went above and beyond my expectations.

Cena vs. Ryback was almost match of the night, but Cena ended up making Ryback look like a bumbling idiot by the end, taking fire extinguisher shots and being run through the stage like a cartoon character. The end was logical, technically keeping both strong until next month, but I couldn't help but feel they could have done more.

Triple H vs. Lesnar? Same main issue as above: Lesnar looked like an idiot. Triple H had him beat time after time and Lesnar only won because he "got lucky." How can you make money out of a "monster" heel if he loses half of his matches and can barely win the others? It completely defeats the purpose of Lesnar's gimmick.

The undercard really brought up the show with good performances from The Shield in both of their matches and a surprisingly intense encounter with Swagger and Del Rio. The crowd didn't get much out of the latter match it seemed, but the story they told was by far the best of the night. Swagger looked like an absolute monster, and I thought Del Rio played the underdog role very well.

The early matches tonight seemed to mainly suffer from being a tad slow and sloppy. This was seen in the Fandango-Jericho match, but was most evident in the U.S. Title match. Kofi's game was seriously off. He kept running into Ambrose and botching spots (yes, it could have been Ambrose on this), and he didn't seem to be executing his moves with the high elevation and crispness he normally does. It was a very odd detriment to their match.

The real stinker of the night was Mark Henry vs. Sheamus. I don't know how much of it was attributed to Mark Henry's apparent injury that he could be seen selling after the match, but it was overall slow and plodding with tons of botched spots and bumps which looked incredibly painless. My expectations for this were low going in and they were still not met.

There were some off portions in the undercard and the main event matches didn't excel, but the right people won and the night ended up feeling noteworthy. The pace was very good and the crowd was hot. Just don't make Lesnar and Ryback look like they have the brains of five-year-olds, please.

Questions? Comments? Reactions? Find me on Twitter @BTuckerTorch, where I talk about wrestling and... stuff!

[Artwork credit Brian Salinas (c) PWTorch.com]

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