7 Match Star Ratings For WWE Extreme Rules 2021

7. KICKOFF: Liv Morgan Vs. Carmella

Despite the woefully retrograde premise - Carmella thinks she's hotter than Liv Morgan, so they had a match - this was really quite good. Carmella might be one of the more underrated wrestlers on the planet, a claim which is helped by her terrible appearances on television. Or, her career is almost ruined entirely by how sh*tty the creative is.

Depends on how you look at it!

In one fast, crisp sequence that kept the audience guessing, Morgan flew into a back elbow into the corner. Then, under the pretence that she actually despised her opponent, she did it again, and ate sh*t. The intent behind everything she did here was believable, even (especially) if it didn't come off in the story. The nuances to her work were well thought-out, as was the story in general. Carmella bragged about not making the same mistake, when she halted her own trajectory, but Morgan capitalised on her arrogance by striking her with a decent-looking shotgun dropkick.

Carmella's subsequent heat sequence was boring and very much laid out by an old white fella - "I'm hot, you're not," she said to Morgan before executing a suplex and the obligatory endless chinlock. Beyond that, the hatred was expressed with Morgan's vicious head-first curb stomp delivered after two wincing strikes to the head.

"Way better than the creative indicated" applies to virtually every WWE match ever, but was especially true here.

Star Rating: ★★★¼