8 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Extreme Rules 2017

Downs...

6. Elias ‘Sings’… And That’s All

Brand-specific PPVs often are running short on matches, so they bulk up the runtime by having various segments, whether backstage interviews or skits.

Bringing Elias Samson out to serenade the Baltimore crowd with a song about how dirty and depressing their city is was a good way to get cheap heat, but really? That’s all WWE could bring to the table? Why wouldn’t you use that opportunity to have some local jobber out there to lose to Samson in a squash? It would’ve added all of three minutes to the PPV and given fans more of a reason to dislike the Drifter (is he still called that, or has his nickname drifted away?).

Stuff like that is frustrating, because the song was a good way to rile fans up, but then having him maul some no-name opponent would’ve served more of a purpose. On its own, the song just fell flat.

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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.