WWE Extreme Rules Review - September 26, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Kickoff Show: Liv Morgan def. Carmella

I felt really bad for these two. I wasn't clamoring for this match in the first place because it came out of nowhere, but they advertised it for the main card originally and even mentioned on a few occasions that this marked her second-ever singles match on a pay-per-view. It would have been her first on the main card until it got bumped to the Kickoff show. They gave it a good effort and had a decent match. Morgan winning was the right call. She received a strong reaction during her entrance.

The New Day (WWE Champion Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) def. Bobby Lashley, AJ Styles and Omos

Could WWE not have bothered to advertise this for the main card before the Kickoff show? It would be inexcusable regardless, but it was especially egregious in this case given that Big E is the WWE Champion and should have been promoted for the pay-per-view ahead of time. That said, this was the entertaining encounter you'd expect from these six stars. They constantly kept things moving and the crowd was into all of it. My only issue with it was Big E pinning Lashley for the finish. If Lashley is going to challenge Big E for the WWE Championship on Monday's Raw, why wouldn't have Styles been pinned here to protect Lashley in defeat?

SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos def. The Street Profits

Are these guys even capable of having a bad match together? I think the answer is no. This was the third match they've had in the last month and yet I'm still not tired of seeing them against each other. This was an absolute blast. Most fans figured The Usos were retaining their titles, but there were still some suspenseful nearfalls from Street Profits. The action was excellent and I loved every second of this. Based on what we saw on SmackDown, I assume Alpha Academy will be next in line for a shot at the straps.

Raw Women's Champion Charlotte Flair def. Alexa Bliss

I was dreading the idea of this match when it was first teased over a month ago, but I appreciate that WWE has toned down the supernatural stuff with Bliss lately. She was back to the Bliss of old in the ring for this match and it was quite good as a result. I believe they've only ever faced off one other time and that was at Survivor Series 2017, yet they worked well together here. Bliss shouldn't be champion with this character and it appears she might be moving on to something else given her post-match meltdown. Speaking of which, that painfully lasted a lot longer than it should have.

United States Champion Damian Priest def. Sheamus and Jeff Hardy in a Triple Threat Match

Priest just doesn't miss at the moment. Whether it's been a singles match or a Triple Threat, Priest and Sheamus have killed it every time they've shared a ring over the last two months and this was no exception. I have no idea why Hardy was added if he wasn't going to take the losing fall, but I'm not complaining because he proved to be a worthy addition to the bout and had the crowd behind him. It's amazing how over he still is with the audience despite losing a majority of his matches at this stage of his career. I'm glad Priest retained the title and I honestly wouldn't be opposed to seeing him swap shows with Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura so he can eventually challenge Roman Reigns. I think he can be built up as a legitimate threat to him at some point.

SmackDown Women's Champion Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair Ended in a No Contest

Can you believe that this was Lynch's first full match since facing Shayna Baszler at WrestleMania 36 almost a year-and-a-half ago? She didn't miss a beat whatsoever and you would never know she gave birth nearly nine months ago. Belair is at the top of her game right now as well, so unsurprisingly, this was an excellent affair as I expected it to be. Belair has shown she has chemistry with three of the Four Horsewomen so far, so hopefully she and Charlotte can make up for their dud of a match from NXT last year at some point. I was fine with Sasha Banks interfering and causing the contest to be thrown out because neither woman should be losing at this point in the program. It looks like we have a Triple Threat on our hands one of these weeks because I doubt WWE saves it for a pay-per-view (assuming they aren't on the card for Crown Jewel and Survivor Series focuses on the brand supremacy stuff again).

Universal Champion Roman Reigns def. "The Demon" Finn Balor in an Extreme Rules Match

Reigns and Balor have always brought the best out of each other in the ring dating back to their very first match on Raw (the same night Balor debuted on the main roster) in July 2016, so I had no doubt that this would be a worthy main event. Sure enough, they kicked ass and made the most of the stipulation, even though it wasn't any more "extreme" than what we'd normally see on any given episode of Raw or SmackDown. I could have done without the interference from The Usos, but I understand they would've been fools in storyline to not get involved in a match without disqualifications. Things went totally downhill once Balor was revived (or whatever the hell you want to call it) and starting dominating everyone at ringside while his music played in the background and the lights flickered. I thought that was goofy, and then the tope rope collapsed while he was on it, leading to Reigns picking up the victory. That had to be one the dumbest finishes I've seen to a WWE pay-per-view in a while, at least since the Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt garbage from Hell in a Cell 2019. The idea was to protect The Demon in defeat because the outcome was super predictable, but surely there was a better way to do that than what they did. That was WCW in its dying days level of crap. Good grief. If that's what Vince McMahon has in mind for The Demon, perhaps Balor would be better off turning heel and portraying the persona he had in NXT two years ago.

Overall Show

Unless you got your hopes up (and I'm not sure why you would have considering the build to this show was not the greatest), I can't imagine anyone being disappointed by this show. Yes, it is completely ridiculous that a pay-per-view called Extreme Rules only had one Extreme Rules match, but other than that, this was an easy thumbs-up show. We got six good to great matches on the main card and the event ran under three hours. The post-match stuff with Bliss was trash and the ending to the main event was lame, but everything else delivered I felt and there were no questionable booking decisions. For WWE, that's a successful show. It's a low bar, I know, but such is the standard in 2021 for this company.

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