WWE Extreme Rules 2020 Made Us Long For The Simple Pleasures In Wrestling
Amidst the eyeballs, puke, and doppelgangers, there were still glimmers of hope.
Before Seth Rollins gazed menacingly at his concealed water pump pliers, (to remove an eyeball Seth? That's, er… logical) we had Shinsuke Nakamura and Cesaro scoring a victory against The New Day. The Swiss Cyborg drove Kofi Kingston through two tables, he and Nakamura took the belts, and Cesaro proceeded to rant about how the earned victory was long overdue. It was neat.
Before The Michael Winner Filmmaker's Award went to the creative team behind the cinematic offal that was The Swamp Fight, we had Sasha Banks face Asuka in an all-out battle for the Raw Women's title. The wrestling was intense, the chemistry was explosive, and besides the ref shirt cheat victory, the match was a stunner. Neat again.
Let's go back further before the entire unsavoury swill of alligator trots that was The Horror Show at Extreme Rules. During the kick-off show, we had an ultra solid match between Murphy and Kevin Owens. Simple in essence, these two gravity-defying bruisers put on a full-pelt crowd-pleaser. Imagine breaking the hearts of paying live audiences by informing them that this would be one of the highlights of the whole night… though many may have suspected that already. Neat once more.
Honourable mentions also go out to Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre, and even Rollins and Rey Mysterio, who before the added botch stipulations, and steel steps (which one can only assume had some kind of industrial strength superglue pasted onto the corner), put on some sterling in-ring work too. It wasn't all bad then, but these moments of clarity were short-lived and shoved by force to the back of one's mind in favour of the pay per view's primary intent, which was to deliver contrived shock nonsense and pointless twists, in no great distance apart from WCW in 2000. Yes it was funny, but not for the right reasons.
Wrestling's great. Though not without problems, it was never truly broke, and therefore did not need fixing. Straightforward wrestling with smooth choreography will beat OTT spectacles 24/7 and we all know it. It can't be put any more bluntly than that. Here's a big shout out to all the WWE talent who were blessed with the chance to play to their skills, treat the game with class and remind the fans for all too-fleeting moments why WWE could, if it wanted to, have itself another golden age/era… global situations aside.
Be assured that these were the moments that shone, that gave fans at least some semblance of value for money, and served as a loyal workhorse and fortified backbone amidst a crumbling folly of terrible ideas. 'The Simpler, The Better'. How's that for a hyperbole pay per view title? Please WWE, let your talent put their work back in the ring, and promise to never be this silly again!