WWE Extreme Rules 2017: 8 Huge Predictions You Need To Know
'You want it to be one way, but it's the other way.'
Baltimore, Maryland will host WWE's Extreme Rules pay-per-view this Sunday, following a month's worth of action on Monday Night Raw designed to cleanse the palette after April's abysmal Payback event.
Unlike the most famous show to emanate from 'Charm City', Extreme Rules almost certainly won't boast gripping character development and carefully interwoven storytelling. However, much like HBO's 'The Wire', WWE's stipulation-heavy supercard will almost definitely offer horrific violence that ultimately solves nothing and a sinking feeling amongst viewers that nobody ever truly comes out on top.
Such is the malaise hanging over WWE at the moment, where performers try desperately not to go through the motions in the middle months between WrestleMania and SummerSlam and television viewers drop off in droves despite the sort of panic-button booking that has led to Jinder Mahal winning a World Title and Kurt Angle being inserted into a storyline less than two months after his long-awaited return.
The lack of Brock Lesnar (again) is painfully apparent, but the company have at least acknowledged his absence and dangled a shot at his as-yet-undefended Universal Title in front of Raw's biggest stars (and Bray Wyatt) to give the show's main event a smidgin of gravitas.
Elsewhere Women's, Tag and Intercontinental Titles will be on the line featuring combatants that have all already scrapped at least once on separate pay-per-views in 2017 alone.
As The Wire's savant Officer Pryzbylewski once prophetically noted, 'No one wins, one side just loses more slowly'.
8. Banks Statement
An odd one out in this thrown-together tag team match, Sasha Banks has effectively lowered herself to the Cruiserweight Division, such is the current plight of the 205lbs-and-under chasing pack.
Joining up with Rich Swann on Monday Night Raw thanks to their shared interest in dancing (?!) and her simmering tension with Alicia Fox in the weeks prior, Banks at least regained some purpose having been inexplicably frozen out of the Women's Title picture following Alexa Bliss' victory over her best friend Bayley.
Ringside for Swann's Monday Night Raw victory over Dar, their sudden union did at least perk up the crowd for the struggling lightweights, as did Sasha's scrap with Alicia Fox during the pair's rematch the following night on 205 Live.
Stationed at one win apiece, the tag contest will mark something of a decider for the warring duos, and it seems particularly cruel on Banks not to give the babyfaces the clean victory. The win will hopefully be followed by a storyline that will airlift her away from lower-card frivolities and back in to women's division relevance.