5 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (July 20)
2. WWE Fans Convince WWE To Continue To Push Roman Reigns (!)
Extreme Rules was an insane show in general.
An overlong and overbooked murder scene - almost literally, in the case of Kevin Owens - several popular or once popular acts were killed off. Asuka was the dumbest person in the arena. Daniel Bryan jobbed in a sub-10 minute tag team match.
And, incredibly, an “epic” 30 minute main event match involving Seth Rollins was hijacked by the Pittsburgh crowd, thus sending a message to Vince McMahon that Roman Reigns isn’t the problem; fans will turn even on their anointed golden boy.
It was a strange sentiment to broadcast, since the Reigns push will now continue unabated. Though perhaps the fans knew that already, and sought to amuse themselves anyway by counting along with the Iron Man clock as if at the Royal Rumble. This was a very strange spectacle. The fans even made an annoying “EERRGHH” noise to literally create their own buzz.
Was the reception justified?
They’d just watched a dire sh*thouse show showered with chicanery for four straight hours, and were in the midst of watching an overbooked and contrived mess of a match. An apoplectic Kevin Dunn threw his toys out of the pram, and threw the clock off the tron. This increased the frequency and volume of the chants, hilariously. This was a match in which WWE destroyed established continuity in less than half an hour. Why didn’t Ziggler take a second fall following Drew McIntyre’s second interference? Why wouldn’t fans react, then, as if nothing was worth the investment?
It was rude and dimwitted stuff, to be sure, but the relationship is reciprocal. This was the end result of WWE’s years-long crusade to antagonise its fanbase.
It’s not that any of this matters; the events of the show were retconned during the next night’s opening RAW segment, in which the losers of Extreme Rules (Roman Reigns) were allowed to contend for the Universal Title, and the winners (Dolph Ziggler) were nowhere near the Triple Threat matches.
Again, nothing that happens on WWE TV means anything.
So why not react like it’s meaningless?