7 Match Star Ratings For WWE Extreme Rules 2021
6. The New Day Vs. Bobby Lashley, AJ Styles & Omos
A very fun opener that functioned like a TV match with a hot finish welded onto it, the brisk multi-man action was well-pitched, even if the optics were suboptimal.
If the World Champion is on the show, promote this. It doesn't matter, but casting the illusion that it does counts for an awful lot. It's an insidious thing, what WWE does, to slowly lose fan interest.
It went long, at 18:15, and sagged before Big E was belatedly positioned as a crowd-pleasing winner to set up a RAW match by cleanly pinning his scheduled opponent. It was backwards, as things in this company tend to be, but Lashley was at least presented as a threat before the nonsensical result. In a spot all the better for it being slightly mistimed, Xavier Woods went a little too hard in his charge to the corner spot. This meant that Lashley had to draw on every reserve of his unreal strength to deadlift him into the throw.
If this scans as an odd thing to highlight for praise, it's because this formulaic Good Match mostly existed otherwise. The pace accelerated at the right time, the right talent was spotlighted, the rhythm of the match was as you'd expect.
How do you review a Big Mac?
Any semblance of spontaneity resonates so much more in a promotion like WWE.
Star Rating: ★★★½