WWE Extreme Rules 2016 Review

After falling short a month earlier against Roman Reigns, AJ Styles gets one more chance to hold the richest prize in the business... the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Can AJ finally win the big one? Or will he once again feel the wrath of The Big Dog?

Match 1: Tornado - The Usos vs. Gallows and Anderson
Great way to start off the show to begin the build for the main event with The Usos taking on Gallows and Anderson with tornado tag rules being applied to add to the craziness. Fun match here with the crowd booing The Usos any chance they got since they were siding with Roman Reigns. After Jimmy Uso inadvertently landed on the ring bell from a missed splash from the top, Gallows and Anderson took advantage and hit a Magic Killer to get the win. Nice start to the night and gives AJ Styles some momentum for the main event... even though we already kind of know the outcome for that one.
Winners: Gallows and Anderson
Rating: **1/4

Match 2: WWE United States Championship - Kalisto (c) vs. Rusev
Rusev looks to capture the coveted WWE United States Championship for the second time in his career. Rusev is riding some momentum over Kalisto here as he scorched him with him with his Accolade finisher on Raw prior to this. Kalisto was great in his underdog role here by using his speed and athleticism to get by the bigger and stronger Rusev. However, Kalisto would roll the dice once too many as he would end up getting shoved off the top rope and landed on the side of the ring. The referee told Rusev to back up as he checked on Kalisto, which I thought was really dumb, before Rusev locked in his Accolade and twisting Kalisto into a pretzel. Kalisto immediately tapped and Rusev is once again a champion.
Winner: Rusev
Rating: **

Match 3: WWE Tag Team Championships - The New Day (c) vs. The Vaudevillains
Xavier Woods and Big E are out to represent The New Day while Kofi Kingston is stationed at ringside. Almost weird to see The Vaudevillains as heels, I feel like their gimmick works so much better as babyfaces. And I guess the opposite can be said for The New Day, I think they work better as heels but since they are money machines, here we are. Fun match here that went back and forth before Kofi helped his team secure the victory. Fast action along with some believable nearfalls sprinkled made this a match that made sense but only had me asking for more. It almost felt a bit rushed and certainly could have used a few minutes extra.
Winners: The New Day
Rating: **1/2

Match 4: WWE Intercontinental Championship - The Miz (c) vs. Kevin Owens vs. Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn
This has show stealer written all over it. While the roster was getting really thin around this time due to injuries, we still had these guys healthy and ready to take over the spotlight whenever ready. No pun intended on that "take over" part. Loved the opening part of the match which saw Sami Zayn hit a Helluva Kick on Kevin Owens as soon as the match started followed by Cesaro uppercutting the living daylights out of The Miz. Lots of awesome spots in this match and nearfalls that had me on the edge of my seat and a couple times where I thought for sure it was going to be over. Ending came when Zayn was so distracted in beating up Owens at ringside that The Miz was able to pin a motionless Cesaro to retain the title. Perfect way for him to win. Miz scored a fluke win at Payback and does it again here, completely embracing his role as a heel champion. Credit to all four guys in this match, they truly are superstars at the top level, this will be hard for anyone else on the card to top.
Winner: The Miz
Rating: ****1/4

Match 5: Asylum - Chris Jericho vs. Dean Ambrose
The feud between the two heated up to the point where they were set to end things in the first ever Asylum match... or is it the Ambrose Asylum? I'm not really sure. Either way, this is a cage match with weapons hanging from the top and the only way to win is by pinfall or submission. They built much of the match around them climbing the cage and trying to secure the weapons and it was cool at first, but then it dragged on for a really good chunk of the match. This was to the point where the crowd was sitting on their hands and it almost looked like the match just had no direction. Shocking for me to say this for a match involving Chris Jericho and Dean Ambrose. The match finally took a turn when Ambrose set thumbtacks all over the ring and they had a big sequence that helped build up the spot with Ambrose slamming Jericho on them. Ambrose then hit his Dirty Deeds on the tacks to score the win. Fairly boring start to the match that finally went up a notch when the thumbtacks came into play. The spot looked nasty and certainly helped make up for the first half of the match.
Winner: Dean Ambrose
Rating: ***

Match 6: WWE Women's Championship - Submission - Charlotte (c) vs. Natalya
With Charlotte's father in Ric Flair being banned from ringside, she doesn't posses the huge advantage against Natalya that helped her retain the title at Payback. With that being said, it really didn't give us a better match than their last time around and it still left room for more dumb shenanigans. I love these two, but their chemistry was just off again and when Dana Brooke came out to impersonate Ric Flair, I cringed harder than when they did a screwjob finish at Payback. Charlotte locks in her Figure Eight to retain as her father then comes out to celebrate with her. Unfortunately, another disappointing match for the two.
Winner:
Rating: *3/4

Match 7: WWE World Heavyweight Championship - Extreme Rules - Roman Reigns (c) vs. AJ Styles
I absolutely loved their bout at Payback and had some pretty lofty expectations for this one. Thankfully, they met those expectations as they brought the intensity for this one and beat the living daylights out of each other both in and out of the ring. Of course, the feud turned personal when The Usos and The Club guys became more involved with the story. With that said, you could just feel the hate boiling between both guys as the smaller AJ Styles was giving The Big Dog an absolute run for his money. Roman Reigns used his sheer power to toss Styles around the arena left and right and even drove him through two announcers tables. They were definitely sights to see. It was only fitting to get The Usos and The Club guys involved in the match with Styles beating the crap out of them with a steel chair before trying to hit one last Phenomenal Forearm to seal the fate of Reigns. However, Reigns hits an awesome Spear against Styles in the air and ends the match. Tons of awesome spots sprinkled with believable nearfalls makes this an incredible ending to the show. Or was that the end? Seth Rollins appears out of nowhere and hits a Pedigree on Reigns to send his message loud and clear as the show comes to a close. Personally, I would rather have seen Rollins return the next day on Raw since I felt exhausted from the many stories the match presented. However, it was still well done and a pleasant surprise to the show. But in all seriousness, the hate for Reigns is simply ridiculous. The guy is one of the best in the world and he tore the house down along with another star in AJ Styles.
Winner: Roman Reigns
Rating: ****3/4

Overall Show Thoughts and Rating:
Extreme Rules has become one of my favorite PPVs of the year as the WWE seems to treat it as a big card nearly every year. This was a great follow to Payback with the Intercontinental Championship and main event matches absolutely tearing it down. The main event also may have been the best match I have ever seen from Roman Reigns and once again proves that he is more than capable than holding down the company as the main guy.
Rating: 8.25/10