7 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Extreme Rules 2018

1. Poor Booking, Bad Layout Overshadows PPV

On paper, Extreme Rules looked underwhelming: one Extreme Rules match, a tables match and a cage match were the only of 12 bouts to fit the theme, and only two of the matches really spurred much interest. Still, there was always hope.

But in execution, the PPV was downright disappointing.

Who booked five of the seven championship matches to end with shenanigans? Only the Raw Tag Team Championships and WWE Championship matches ended cleanly. The others all involved some degree of hijinks in determining their outcome, which is unforgivable.

On top of that, eight of the 12 matches ran between five and eight minutes. Another ran six seconds. And then you had two 15-minute bouts and the 30-minute Iron Man contest. It didn’t feel like a PPV with so many short matches that barely got out of second gear. If that was going to be the case, scrap one of the matches and take the 12 minutes you saved on match, entrances and package and give to two of the remaining bouts to pad them out a bit.

It just was not a good PPV when you look at it from the 50,000-foot view.