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Eleven matches will take place at the 2018 WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sunday.
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From the Raw brand, six matches are scheduled for the event, including Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (Intercontinental Championship Iron Man match) and Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens (steel cage match), while Roman Reigns will battle Bobby Lashley.
Elsewhere from WWE’s flagship show, Curtis Axel & Bo Dallas will finally get their opportunity at Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt’s Raw Tag Team Championships, Finn Balor will go one-on-one with Baron Corbin, and Alexa Bliss will put her Raw Women’s Championship on the line against Nia Jax with Ronda Rousey at ringside.
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The featured matches from the SmackDown Live brand are AJ Styles vs. Rusev (WWE Championship) and The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Team Hell No (SmackDown Tag Team Championships), while James Ellsworth will be suspended above the ring in a shark cage when Carmella faces Asuka (SmackDown Women's Championship).
Shinsuke Nakamura will also be in action, challenging Jeff Hardy for the United States Championship, and the event will start with The New Day battling SAnitY in a six-man tables match on the kickoff show.
Without any further ado, let’s predict the outcome of every match on the card. Agree? Disagree? Leave your predictions in the comment section.
#11 The New Day vs. SAnitY (kickoff show)
It makes for a refreshing change that WWE has announced an appealing PPV kickoff show match for Extreme Rules, with The New Day and SAnitY set to do battle in a tables match following their intense confrontations on SmackDown Live over the last few weeks.
This has the potential to be the best match on the card, despite taking place before the main show even starts, with both trios often exceeding expectations at PPVs/TakeOver events in the past.
For the simple fact that SAnitY are new to the main roster and they’ve already suffered a couple of defeats, let's go with them to get the win.
Prediction: SAnitY
#10 Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin
With the greatest of respect to Finn Balor and Baron Corbin, this is the most meaningless match on the card and it would probably be better suited and treated like a bigger deal by fans if it happened on an episode of Raw.
“Constable” Corbin has picked up some surprise victories over Balor in tag matches in recent weeks, which suggests that the former Universal champion will get his revenge on Sunday.
Prediction: Finn Balor
#9 Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens
Kevin Owens has spent the last month trying to escape the monstrous Braun Strowman, so it’s only fitting that he will be rewarded with a victory if he succeeds in escaping a steel cage before the Money In The Bank winner at Extreme Rules.
That being said, KO is on the worst PPV losing run of his career right now, having lost all six of his PPV matches so far in 2018, and we don’t see him ending that run in Pittsburgh. This match has got a Strowman win written all over it.
Prediction: Braun Strowman
#8 Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax (Raw Women’s Championship)
Do we really need to see Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax for the fourth pay-per-view in a row? No, but at least this match, which has an Extreme Rules stipulation, will be a little different from their previous meetings, especially with Ronda Rousey watching on from ringside.
Alexa has only just regained the Raw Women’s Championship from Nia and the next big title match from the red brand’s women’s division surely has to be "Little Miss Bliss" vs. "The Baddest Woman On The Planet" at SummerSlam. For that reason, let’s predict another win for Bliss on Sunday thanks to the inevitable interference of Mickie James.
Prediction: Alexa Bliss
#7 Carmella vs. Asuka (SmackDown Women’s Championship)
Before this week’s episode of SmackDown Live, Asuka looked to be the favourite to emerge from Extreme Rules with the SmackDown Women’s Championship. That was, of course, until James Ellsworth used an unknown spray on “The Empress of Tomorrow” after their match on Tuesday.
Paige announced later in the show that Ellsworth will have to watch Sunday’s match from a shark cage above the ring. However, the stipulation is more likely to hinder than help Asuka, with Carmella’s sidekick almost certain to throw the spray down to the champion to use during the match when the referee’s back is turned.
Hopefully, this prediction is wrong – Asuka would make a great champion – but all signs point towards Carmella retaining.
Prediction: Carmella
#6 Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt vs. Curtis Axel & Bo Dallas (Raw Tag Team Championships)
It just goes to show how poor tag team storylines have been in 2018 that this feud between The Deleters of Worlds and The B-Team hasn’t even been one of the most prominent storylines on Raw recently but it’s already the top contender to win Tag Team Rivalry of the Year.
Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas make for an entertaining double-act, but does anyone really see them dethroning Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt at Extreme Rules? With The Revival and The Authors of Pain destined to enter the title reckoning soon, it would be a major surprise if The B-Team defied the odds on Sunday.
Prediction: Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt
#5 The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Team Hell No (SmackDown Tag Team Championships)
In WWE fantasy land, it would be great to see Kane and Daniel Bryan successfully reunite at Extreme Rules to end The Bludgeon Brothers’ reign of dominance on SmackDown Live.
But, in reality, the man behind the Kane character, Glenn Jacobs, is in the running to become the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee next month, which all but rules out “The Big Red Machine” having any kind of title reign in the near future.
For that reason, plus the fact that Bryan vs. The Miz continues to be teased ahead of a possible match at SummerSlam, let’s go with Harper and Rowan.
Prediction: The Bludgeon Brothers
#4 Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (Intercontinental Championship)
Of all the matches on the Extreme Rules card, this is one of the most difficult to call. Will Dolph Ziggler retain the Intercontinental Championship in a 30-minute Iron Man match with Drew McIntyre by his side? Or will Seth Rollins overcome the odds to win back the title he surprisingly lost last month on Raw?
Long-term, Rollins is destined to be back in the Universal Championship picture again. For now, though, one suspects that he’ll continue to steal the show in IC title matches for weeks and months to come. Let’s go with “The Kingslayer”.
Prediction: Seth Rollins
#3 Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (United States Championship)
Due to injuries to both men in recent weeks, the build-up to Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura at Extreme Rules has been the weakest out of the 11 matches that will take place on Sunday.
Despite “The King of Strong Style” teaming with Rusev to defeat Jeff and AJ Styles on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live, it still feels like the former NXT champion is lacking momentum following his rivalry with Styles, and it doesn’t seem like the right time for him to win his first main-roster title.
This match currently has no stipulation. If it stays that way, there’s always a chance that Nakamura could get himself disqualified, setting up a rematch further down the line when he can win the US title from Jeff after some more storyline build.
Prediction: Jeff Hardy via disqualification
#2 AJ Styles vs. Rusev (WWE Championship)
Like Shinsuke Nakamura against Jeff Hardy, it feels like Rusev is lacking enough momentum to be viewed as a serious threat to AJ Styles’ WWE Championship at Extreme Rules.
Granted, he’s won his last four matches on SmackDown Live and he’s maintained lots of fan support despite WWE continuing to portray him as a heel, but “The Lion of Bulgaria” had been a serial loser on Tuesday nights and PPVs throughout 2018 before his recent successes.
With Brock Lesnar not competing at Extreme Rules, this is the only match on Sunday with a major men’s title on the line, yet it doesn’t even have an ‘extreme’ stipulation to go with it. That tells you all you need to know about how much WWE is (or, rather, isn’t) prioritising this match.
Prediction: AJ Styles
#1 Roman Reigns vs. Bobby Lashley
First of all, let’s hope the Pittsburgh crowd doesn’t hijack this match. The last three pay-per-view rivalries that Roman Reigns has been involved in – against Brock Lesnar, Samoa Joe and Jinder Mahal – weren’t the most exciting but it’d still be nice for the fans to give Sunday’s match against Bobby Lashley a chance instead of chanting “Boring” or “Delete” within the first minute.
This is unofficially a #1 contender match for the Universal Championship, with the winner expected to face Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. Long-term, it still looks likely that Reigns will be the one to dethrone Lesnar for the title, but will that happen in August or at a later date?
This is a tough one to call. Let’s be bold and predict that Lashley will get the win on Sunday, setting up a SummerSlam match against Lesnar, and that “The Big Dog” will re-enter the Universal title scene later in the year.
Prediction: Bobby Lashley
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