5 Possible shocks that could happen at WWE Extreme Rules 2018

The 2018 WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sunday.

Eleven matches have been confirmed for the event, including AJ Styles vs. Rusev (WWE Championship), The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Team Hell No (SmackDown Tag Team Championships), Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (Intercontinental Championship) and Roman Reigns vs. Bobby Lashley.

Elsewhere on the card, both women’s divisions will be represented with Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax (Raw Women’s Championship) and Carmella vs. Asuka (SmackDown Women’s Championship) scheduled for the show, while Jeff Hardy will face Shinsuke Nakamura (United States Championship) and The B-Team will challenge The Deleters of Worlds (Raw Tag Team Championships).

In the other non-title matches, Baron Corbin will go one-on-one with Finn Balor and Braun Strowman will meet Kevin Owens in a steel cage match, while The New Day and SAnitY will battle it out in a tables match on the kickoff show.

Without any further ado, let’s take a look at five possible shocks that WWE could produce at Sunday’s event.

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#5 Brock Lesnar makes an appearance

Brock Lesnar rarely appears on PPV

Brock Lesnar has held the Universal Championship ever since he defeated Goldberg for the title at WrestleMania 33. However, much to the frustration of the WWE Universe, he has only defended it on six occasions, most recently against Roman Reigns at the Greatest Royal Rumble.

With a return to UFC all but confirmed for 2019, it looks like “The Beast” will lose his title at some point before the end of the year, possibly against the winner of Roman Reigns vs. Bobby Lashley, which is essentially a Universal Championship #1 contender match, at SummerSlam.

Instead of the usual promo segments we see on Raw with Lesnar and Paul Heyman, it would be nice to see the Universal champ make a rare PPV appearance alongside his advocate by showing up unannounced at Extreme Rules to whet the appetite for his inevitable SummerSlam title match.

Would that be asking too much? Are we setting our expectations too high? Probably, but we’re holding out for surprises this Sunday and an appearance from Lesnar would certainly be a surprise.

#4 The kickoff show match gets the highest rating on the card

The New Day will face SAnitY in a tables match

PPV kickoff show matches in 2018 have been largely underwhelming so far, with short, meaningless encounters involving the likes of Breezango, The Club and Mojo Rawley taking place on the free-to-air broadcast before the main show.

Extreme Rules, however, should be different. Not only has WWE announced, courtesy of SmackDown General Manager Paige, that The New Day will face SAnitY on the kickoff show, but the match will also have a tables stipulation.

Judging by the chaotic six-man matches that both teams have been involved in over the last year, there’s every chance that this could steal the entire show.

#3 Nikki Cross makes her main-roster debut

Nikki Cross wasn't called up with the rest of SAnitY

Granted, this might be a long shot, but could we see Nikki Cross make her WWE debut sooner rather than later as a member of the SmackDown Live roster?

The NXT Superstar made a surprise appearance at a blue brand live event on Monday, teaming with Becky Lynch in a win over The IIconics, which usually means that a main-roster call-up is on the horizon.

With SAnitY starting to make an impression on SmackDown, perhaps Nikki could join her fellow faction members on Tuesday nights by getting involved in some capacity at Extreme Rules.

And let’s face it, there’s no better PPV theme than Extreme Rules to welcome the Scot to the main roster, so maybe this idea isn’t totally out of the question!

#2 More match stipulations get added to the card

Kevin Owens will face Braun Strowman in a steel cage match

In 2017, WWE produced one of the least ‘extreme’ Extreme Rules PPVs of all time. One of the match stipulations stated that, if Dean Ambrose were to get disqualified against The Miz, he would lose his Intercontinental title, which actively discouraged both guys from going to the ‘extreme’ in their match.

Another match, the Cruiserweight title encounter between Neville and Austin Aries, had to be won by submission – again, not exactly ‘extreme’ considering both men regularly won via that method – while two more of the seven matches at the event had no stipulation at all.

Thankfully, a tables match, a steel cage match, an Iron Man match, a shark cage match and an Extreme Rules match have already been confirmed for this year’s event, but we reckon there’s still time for more stipulations to be added to the show, especially for the AJ Styles vs. Rusev WWE Championship match.

After all, 11 matches are currently scheduled and, as things stand, six of them don’t have stipulations.

#1 Bobby Lashley pins Roman Reigns clean

Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns brawled on this week's Raw

In all honesty, if we had to really stick our necks on the line and predict who is most likely to face Brock Lesnar next for the Universal Championship, we’d play it safe and go for Roman Reigns (again).

However, WWE has done a very good job at building Bobby Lashley up over the last two weeks on Raw ahead of his match against Reigns at Extreme Rules, so it’d be foolish to ignore the possibility that the former ECW champion could defeat “The Big Dog” in Pittsburgh this Sunday.

Would a Lashley victory be seen as a huge shock? Not necessarily, but it would definitely raise a few eyebrows if WWE booked him to pin Reigns clean in the middle of the ring.