5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Extreme Rules 2020

5. Crews MIA

MVP Extreme Rules
WWE.com

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen Apollo Crews on WWE programming, but he was still scheduled to defend his United States Championship against MVP at Extreme Rules.

Instead, after two weeks of plugging the match, we were “treated” to an announcement that Crews had been injured last month by Bobby Lashley’s full nelson (no, seriously) and that he wasn’t medically cleared to compete. MVP came out to have the new title strapped to his waist and declare himself the new champ, which probably isn’t going to stick.

When Apollo switched to Raw earlier this year, he finally seemed to be getting his footing after years on the main roster. He won the US title and finally looked like he was getting a shot to prove himself. But since Paul Heyman’s ouster, Crews has been treated as an afterthought, and Sunday’s absence only added to the woes.

Now, it goes without saying that it’s possible that Crews tested positive for the virus and is off TV for that reason, but if true, then the weeks of building up a PPV match that you couldn’t deliver is in itself a “down.”

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.