10 WWE Extreme Rules 2018 Impulse Reactions
6. Hypotheticals
B-Team, winners. Bored beaten-up midcarder, winner. Kevin Owens: biggest idiot loser on the whole show, winner. Was a pattern emerging yet again?
Ignoring the completely broken psychology the...actually, no, not ignoring it, because it's absolutely impossible to ignore. Kevin Owens as a hypothetical heel may have antagonised hypothetical babyface Braun Strowman by trying to galvanise forces against him at Money In The Bank, but has 'The Monster Among Men's response to his sh*thousery not more than evened the odds by this point? Vince McMahon obviously assumed not, crafting an entire pay-per-view match as a retread of the angle up to this point.
Owens got his sh*t in immediately as the bell rang before getting sh*t on before the next one did to confirm his pyrrhic victory. Even when he had the advantage, his character was deemed too stupid or embittered to take it. But then, one can have sympathy for an abuse victim finally having control over his oppressor if such roles were correctly assigned. Instead, Braun the babyface ripping away his handcuffs to return to brutalising heel Owens was supposed to be as vindicating as 'KO's bump was for the finish.
The mechanisms are knackered. Kevin Owens is definitely knackered. Strowman's future remains on ice so thin it would crack under a cruiserweight's feet, let alone the heavy weight of expectation for him.