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Thanks a lot Pittsburgh WWE fans. You have now ruined clocks forever.
The very annoying audience that tried to ruin the main event withstanding, it would have still been a very confusing night at Extreme Rules. It had lots of screwy finishes, multiple title changes, a ton of cheating and one of the craziest bumps in WWE history. I just hope Kevin Owens is ok after Sunday night’s show. I hope all of the fans are fine and well after the tough to watch three and a half hour show that was Extreme Rules.
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With all of this in my confused mind, I present my list of the top five most surprising moments of WWE Extreme Rules 2018:
#5 The B-Team Wins The Raw Tag Team Championship
Who would have thought the loss of The Miz to Smackdown during the Superstar Shake-up would truly have been a major benefit to Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas’ careers?
I have to give a lot of credit to The B-Team. They have had a lot of fun recently and have played their comedic, over excited characters perfectly in the last few months. They have become a rare bright spot on an otherwise difficult to watch Raw show.
I understand that they were undefeated over the last few weeks but to go from a completely comedic team to the Tag Team Champions so quickly? That was shocking. Even more shocking was that it was a clean victory for Bo Dallas too in the short eight-minute match.
I don’t know where the B-Team goes from here. It isn’t like the Raw tag division is really on fire right now. They seem to forget they have Authors of Pain most of the time. Maybe the Best Team is the way to go after all in the current landscape. I mean it isn't like you could have pushed the incredibly over Woken Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt right?
#4 Shinsuke Nakamura wins the United States Championship Quickly
I was starting to get worried about Shinsuke Nakamura. He has had nothing go his way since winning the Royal Rumble match in January. I have debated if having months of unsuccessfully chasing the WWE title was good for his career. But I do know he desperately needed to beat Jeff Hardy to get his career back on track. I was shocked to see it happen so quickly at Extreme Rules.
It started with a now traditional Nakamura low blow, the bell rang and Nakamura hit the Kinshasa to win in six seconds. That was it. It is so weird to see a six-second title match in this day and age. Unless Jeff Hardy was injured, it makes little sense to not just give us a quality match at this point in the card. This show certainly needed it.
And then Randy Orton coming back as a heel? The plot thickens and Randy Orton is the more natural heel anyway. We have some interesting times for the United States title upcoming.
#3 Bobby Lashley wins clean
It is still surprising to see Roman Reigns lose clean ever in the WWE. It sure seemed like they were setting Roman up for another annoying Lesnar versus Reigns match at Summerslam. When Lashley actually speared Reigns leading to the clean victory, the crowd reacted with a big cheer. WWE crowds are as sick of Roman Reigns as I currently am.
The match itself wasn’t bad. It was pretty back and forth with some believable near falls on both sides. I think Lashley needed the victory to look more credible. The idea of a match between Lesnar and Lashley seems a lot more interesting and fresh for sure.
#2 Kevin Owens takes a crazy bump
I think Kevin Owens needs an intervention. It is time that someone tells him he doesn’t need to attempt to injure himself just for our entertainment in every major match. Being thrown off the top of a steel cage onto an announce table is quite an unnecessary risk at such a small pay-per-view.
I fully expected Braun Strowman to destroy Kevin Owens and win the match. It was surprising to see Kevin Owens actually get in so much offense after the last couple of weeks of booking.
Owens was the winner of the match by nature of hitting the ground first but man did he pay a risky price. I don’t know where the feud goes from here but at the very least I hope it doesn’t require Kevin Owens to risk his body anymore than he already has in the last few months.
#1 Dolph Ziggler cheats to win in sudden death
I was excited to see Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins main event the pay-per-view. The crowd for Extreme Rules was excited to see a running clock for the first time ever apparently. It almost ruined what was a solid 30-minute Ironman match.
If you go back and re-watch it without sound you will see some interesting booking through the match. I doubt you would see many Ironman matches that have seven pinfalls in the first fifteen minutes.
It quickly had a more frantic pace as Rollins tried to tie up the match. He did and then it let to a tie after regulation ended. It was really strange to see the match end and Ziggler begin to leave. I would have been more surprised to see a draw in an Ironman Match.
Kurt Angle predictably came out to restart the match. I figured we would get a frantic few minutes of fun to build a strong ending of the Ironman match. What did we actually get? We got Drew McIntyre, who had already been banned, distracting Rollins and ending “sudden death” in 15 seconds. It was a weird way to end a unique match event.
Did you enjoy Extreme Rules? Let us know in the comments section below!
