Dolph Ziggler, WWE's new World Heavyweight Champion, was forced to sit out of the Extreme Rules Pay-Per-View due to a concussion caused by Jack Swagger. The WWE Universe witnessed the incident on the May 10th episode of SmackDown, where Swagger kicked Ziggler in the face as he reached out for a ladder, (thrown into the ring by Alberto Del Rio) causing Ziggler to fly backwards onto the mat. This was going to be Dolph's first big title defense as the champ, and it was supposed to be a triple-threat ladder match between Ziggler, Swagger and Del Rio. "Creative" was forced to come up with a match for Swagger and Del Rio, since without the champion everything that they had been working with in the past had to be thrown out the window. The team came up with the idea of having Swagger and Del Rio face off in a Number-One Contenders "I Quit" match, with the winner being awarded the opportunity to face Ziggler for the title. The problem I have here is the use of the "I Quit" match. Even with the theme of the PPV being "Extreme Rules," there was no reason to throw the "I Quit" stipulation in this match---it served no purpose. The "I Quit" match is supposed to be a humiliating stipulation; It is supposed to be for intense rivalries. Just randomly throwing in this stipulation because it's Extreme Rules night and "why not," ended up being a disservice to all involved. Like I said before, the "I Quit" stipulation is for heated rivalries and the Del Rio/Swagger rivalry is not exactly what I would call "heated". It's only been going on for a few months, and they've only faced off on one PPV before Extreme Rules. Sure, Zeb Coulter is quickly becoming one of the most hated managers in the WWE and Ricardo Rodriguez is probably one of the most loved, but the fan reaction to the two superstars that wrestle under their managers is lukewarm at best. When I see the "I Quit" stipulation added to a match, I expect that match to be a brutal contest with two superstars that totally despise each other. However, when I watched the match between Del Rio and Swagger, I just saw two guys who looked to be "going through the motions," just because that was the match that was given to them; I didn't
believe that one superstar really wanted to make the other suffer. Not a knock on the two performers at all, but even when I tried my hardest to enjoy the match stipulation because I haven't seen it in a while, it just made me want the match to end because there really was no purpose. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because when the match was originally introduced on RAW, I a total of around four people cheered, or in other words, (as I read on Twitter, can't remember exactly who said it though) the crowd went mild. It's honestly not
that big of a deal, I don't think WWE's stock is going to drop because of one misused match. What really annoys me is the overall "let's just throw this out there because we can" attitude the WWE has nowadays, instead of really planning things out and having things make sense. (I know this couldn't be planned, but "Creative" could have gone a different way about it.) Long-story short, next time I hope the creative team doesn't just throw around stipulations for the hell of it. The "I Quit" stipulation is supposed to be used for humiliation between two hated superstars. At Extreme Rules, the "I Quit" stipulation was just thrown into the fray because of the PPV name and as a result, weakened (at least in my mind) the overall idea of what the "I Quit" match is supposed to mean. It seems the WWE is doing this a lot lately, (not really with matches, but the use of certain mid-card superstars) and this is the first time it has really hindered my enjoyment of the product. Any thoughts on this? am I entirely overblowing the situation? Sound off in the comments below!