Meltzer's star ratings:

Dolph v Baron: 2 1/4
Kalisto v Ryback: 2 3/4
Vaudevillians v E&C: No Rating
Owens v Zayn: 4
Miz v Cesaro: 3 1/4
Ambrose v Jericho: 3 3/4
Charlotte v Natalya: 3 1/4
Reigns v Aj Styles: 3 3/4

How in the blue **** does he arrive at those ratings for Ambrose/Jericho and Charlotte/Nattie...

Mea culpa on thinking that he would go horribly overboard on Reigns/Styles, but those other two are just absurd.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOL at 3 3/4 for Cruel Dad Vs Ambore

Alvarez had an interesting argument about the Ambrose/Jericho match. The crowd started out quiet and apathetic, and then as the match went on the crowd got really into the match. That is achievement; turning the crowd around. But Michael Cole sounded so nonchalant and bored about the finish. If Jim Ross had been doing the match he would have sold it "as a goddamn titanic ****ing struggle".

Personally I can't stand Ambrose matches unless he's against someone I really like (and has a reasonable chance of beating him), so I never really thought of it in that way.

WWE EXTREME RULES 2016

Tornado Tag - The Usos vs. Anderson & Gallows: Some of the early action was decent…enjoyed the stiff flying forearm by one of the Usos early, then the knee to the temple by Anderson(?) a bit later. Match became a bit disjointed and messy in the middle. Ending sequence was okay. I couldn't bring myself to care about this, but in a vacuum it provided watchable action and probably lands in the median if I could set aside my aggressive disinterest in the Usos.

Rating: **1/2

US Title - Kalisto (c) vs. Rusev: I approve of the result, the overall storytelling, and Rusev's performance all across the board. I do think that it was a mistake to give Kalisto as extensive of an offensive advantage as he got in the middle, and I hate that Kalisto's offense was totally unaffected by his kayfabe injuries and the early-match Rusev dominance, but I still enjoyed this a decent bit.

Rating: ***

Tag Titles - New Day (c) vs. The Vaudevillains: The initial heat segment on Xavier Woods was boring garbage, Big E's hot tag segment was entertaining, finisher kickout is crap, decent ending I guess. Overall the match was whatever.

Rating: **

IC Title - The Miz (c) vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro: Love Sami knocking Owens the **** out right at the start. The Cesaro/Miz spot to follow was more contrived, but meh. KO's trash-talk was great as always…dodging a punch and yelling "SO CLOSE!" made me LOL. Hate contrived spots like Cesaro joining in on a double superplex and somehow getting a significant advantage from his involvement in the spot. I do like little touches like wrestlers attempting to pin two different guys when there are two hurt opponents down, even though they would obviously be better in a company where you can win a lot more often on transition moves. Finisher kickout is crap. The KO distraction roll-up false finish was good. Don't love the whole "Cesaro has been screwed and therefore is now obviously drawing dead" thing, but I see the benefit. Overall this was great, only a couple of contrived combo moves and mostly a lot of really well-done organic and awesome spots.

Rating: ****1/4

Asylum Match - Dean Ambrose vs. Chris Jericho: "Climb up and get the weapon" stipulation is always sort of a fail because it invariably ends up with "wrestler A goes and gets weapon, wrestler B then gets the weapon from him and uses it on him." Part of the stip should be that you get exclusive control over a weapon if you climb up and get it. For as much as I don't really care for Dean Ambrose, the dynamic with him joyfully trolling the old man who takes things too seriously is a fun one. It's funny that I found myself enjoying this at the start when I didn't expect to, considering that the live crowd hated it throughout. The dead crowd obviously takes points away, especially when they had been hot all night. Once the crowd had been fully killed, it also became too tough for me to enjoy this, as it felt like it ended up lasting WAY beyond its expiration. Respect to Jericho for taking the thumbtacks, but damn if it didn't feel like an eternity getting there.

Rating: **

Women's Title - Charlotte (c) vs. Natalya: Absolute crap. The action mostly wasn't anything too good, then the ending was a pathetic mess.

Rating: 1/2*

WWE Title - Roman Reigns (c) vs. AJ Styles: I would like to automatically cap matches at two stars if they feature JBLsplaining why it's really good for Reigns that the crowd boos the **** out of them, but I suppose I'll hold off on enforcing that standard. Styles getting backdropped on the table was great. Splash Mountain by Roman was really good. The short suplex into the corner by Styles was really good. Reigns whipping AJ into the side of the ring and then powerbombing him through the table was another great sequence. Things got worse after the tag teams got involved, but it remained great, high-intensity stuff until the completely bull**** ending that should render all human beings embarrassed to share the planet with the people on the WWE booking team. This was easily at least ****1/2 until the bookers brought permanent shame down upon their families. I still give it a really high rating; I couldn't bring myself to go lower than this.

Rating: ****1/4

Extreme Rules 2016


I missed the first two matches sadly.


New Day (c) vs Vaudevillains (Tag Title): * * * 1/4

Enjoyed what they did here. Keeping Big E out of it for so long helped put more credibility to the Vaudevillains at the start of the match, Big E's suicide dive looked good, and the general approach of the Vaudevillains throughout the match made them look like serious contenders to me. They controlled a lot of the match, took out members of the new day on the outside, were aggressive, and got the upper hand a few times. The fact that the New Day needed Kofi to interfere in order to retain was a positive too. Only negative is having Xavier kick out of their finish instantly, but in todays WWE that's not the death knell it should be.



The Miz (c) vs Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens vs Cesaro (IC Title): * * * * 1/4

This was really great. Opening bell sounding and Sami hitting the Helluva Kick on KO instantly made sense with how everything had been booked. All of them got in their signature spots but they all happened organically instead of it happening in a convoluted or "we're just lining up our moves and doing them like a checklist" way. KO doing his cannon balls after Cesaros uppercuts worked well for me. A very, very, very good false finish with the skull crushing finale on Cesaro and THEN having Miz retain is awesome as well. Cesaro getting the visual submission allows the feud to continue.

I normally don't like fatal four ways because it's all a jumbled mess a lot, but they did awesome.


Dean Ambrose vs Jericho (Asylum Match): * * 3/4

I quite enjoyed the start and end to this one, but the middle dragged on a bit. This is a smaller rating than it should be due to atrocious commentary during it where none of them seemed excited at all. I wanted to go three stars, but jbl and cole were practically falling asleep on air. There were some enjoyable spots (LOOK WHAT I GOT YOU IDIOT) and a really fun finish where they introduced tacks and then took us on a rollercoaster ride over who would take the bump instead of instantly doing it. I think it was a little too long though. Still, I seemed to enjoy more than most.



Charlotte (c) vs Natalya (Women's Title): 1/4

This was complete and utter garbage start to finish. The entire build had neither of them factored in (Bret vs Flair; Shane banning Flair from ringside), the match was boring (it was like a checklist of "this non-finishing submission then this one then this one" instead of any relevant story being told that normally goes into a submission match, as the announcers talked about anything else), and the finish made zero sense and was yet another swerve out of a real ending (despite the stipulations purpose to be to give us a real ending). This was awful. Awful.



Roman Reigns (c) vs AJ Styles (WWE Title: * * * *

The first two thirds of this match were incredible. They did a great job of escalating from the last event right off of the bat and giving us a lot of action early. Back and forth with high impact spots throughout the building. It wasn't a circus act or a spotfest either. It was really physical and showed a story of two people disliking each other and trying to hurt them. The reigns powerbomb in the middle, the forearm miss through the table, the swinging aj into the apron then powerbombing through the table, and the spear through the barricade were all excellent. I'd probably have it at 4.5 which iirc is the highest I've given.

Then the club and the usos got involved, which while was obvious to happen still brought it down some. one team did their move on one of the match members into kickout followed by the other team doing their move on the other and then kickout was a bit lazy I thought. just was like going through the motions and kind of what I mean by "checklist".

Still the match was awesome and it lead to AJ snapping with the chair, which was a cool spot. Just unloading 10ish chair shots on a prone Reigns and the usos developed his character a lot (he started the feud unwilling to hit reigns with the chair!) so I was still cool with it all. Then reigns got up immediately and speared aj for the win and I was deflated.

We all knew roman was winning, but the insta get up from multiple chair shots to a quick spear and win kind of negates all the build up the match provided of doing whatever it took to win. we see aj start the match ripping off the protective padding on the floor and barricade and end the match unloading chair shots in a frenzy and we understand why all of this was happening. roman just taking the abuse and getting up unfazed into a spear just snaps you out of that zone you were in where you really started to suspend disbelief and get into the match.

It was the first time in a while I've been fully immersed in a match - and the first 2/3 were fantastic - so I keep it at 4, but that ending man. It makes little sense.



Overall very solid ppv. No complaints about watching it on my end.

Vaudevillains getting to conduct a heat segment on Xavier Woods is totally standard outside of a squash match. The Kofiference was obviously meant to protect the Vaudevillains a bit, but the announcers didn't really sell it beyond a brief mention, and I guess it's TBD on whether it will even be brought up again going forward.

The thing with the finisher kickout, beyond it being AIDS by itself, is that the Vaudevillains didn't have any significant false finish kickout of their own. That's almost always a necessary component of the "they lost but looked great in defeat" formula; instead, New Day absorbed their very best, then won in fairly short order afterward. That's why Kofi interfering doesn't really come off as a desperate move that New Day truly needed in order to bring this one home.

It's really difficult for me to see this match as coming off like anything but the Vaudevillains shooting their load and then losing anyway, but I suppose we're just going to disagree on this one.

Flash rankings (I confess to flipping back and forth some between this and other stuff):

Usos vs. Gallows/Anderson: **1/2 -- technically mostly cromulent I guess

Kalisto vs. Rusev: ***1/4 and maybe it should be a bit higher, I thought this was really good stuff.

New Day vs. Vaudevillains: **1/2 -- technically worse than the other tag match, but "can I give the slightest **** about this match" pushes it back up

Miz vs. Zayn vs. Owens vs. Cesaro: ****1/2 Everything about this was really good, except the pinning sequence, which was still pretty good and makes sense for everyone involved. Hopefully they do the smart thing and spin this into "Zayn and Owens hate each other more than they like the belt" to lock them in, and we get other movement there where the other guys can do other things.

Ambrose vs. Jericho: *1/2 Frankly, this was pretty much trash. Terrible ring psychology, enhanced by terrible commentary, and there were two mildly entertaining moments in the whole thing (the nunchucks talking, and the thumbtacks), and frankly the thumbtacks ought to be a really special OMG moment as the culmination of a massive feud and it's wasted in some Ambrose/Jericho match based on fake talk segments nobody likes and a destroyed light-up jacket. And having typed that I just deducted another quarter star (I had it at 1.75) because it feels right.

Charlotte vs. Natty: 3/4* and I'm being kind. Would have been a 2* match before the ending. Someone I don't have any reason to care about not-really-interfering in a situation where that someone is pretending to be someone that can't be interfering anyway, culminating in the submission match equivalent of a distraction rollup, which ought to mean we get another month of this **** at the next PPV. Get that **** out of your system on Smackdown, and try not to make it even more obvious you're treading water until Sasha gets back, please. Dumbest ending to a PPV match in quite some time.

Reigns vs. AJ: *** This was headed for 4-4.5* until the bunch of people nobody cares about got involves. If ever there was a time to call an audible and just hold everybody back and let them finish semi-cleanly on their own (have Roman kick him in the nuts and pin him or something), this was it. Reigns is having a legit GREAT match (I don't care if AJ's carrying him or not, this match probably turns him in people's minds) and you go and absolutely ruin it. Absolutely the dumbest finish to a PPV match ever, at least since the previous match's ending, and the worst part is that knowing it was coming held me back from being able to let myself enjoy the first 80%.

I'm somewhere in between LKJ and DWetzel on the main event.

On one hand, the in-ring work was great from both participants (it may have been Roman's best singles work ever), so I can't justify giving it only 3 stars. But I also can't justify 4 or higher because of how awfully booked the last 10-20% of the match was.

I wanted to ding the hell out of it for that ending, but even as I went down as far as four stars I couldn't pull the trigger. I actually had the thought in the middle of the match that there could be some chance of a five-star match being in progress. Obviously they ended up falling way short of that, but that's how highly I thought of the first 80%.

I get it, the ring work was exceptional (4.25* feels about right, 4.5* if not for the "hulk up insta spear" finish) and I may be overreacting to it but the sheer stench of inevitability of what was to come actively made me enjoy it less. Dids would hate me for that so I know I'm right.

I can write three better ways for it to go than that chattering on my IPhone that wouldn't have ****ed it all up (one of those being "nobody interferes", that was easy).

As some of you know from my WM review posts, I'm not real big on rating individual matches, I prefer rating entire cards or shows. I also would never question or belittle anyone's ratings of any matches. I might disagree, but it's an opinion, and I will always respect that. With that said, I have a question about the rating of the main event. I'm working off the assumption that we all knew and expected there to be all kinds of interference at the end of the match. Even though we all knew it was coming, do you still mark the match down a tick or two for it, or do you remain neutral on it?

Us all knowing it was coming is really kind of a downgrade in and of itself to me. But the biggest downgrade of the closing sequence for me still lies in the superhero recovery into a spear, which we didn't necessarily know was coming even if there was significant fear of it.

Kalisto not selling any of his injuries and running around unfazed was much worse than Reigns recovering into a spear. Reigns being superhuman is consistent with his character and it isn't at all surprising that they have a superhuman on top (Reigns recently, Undertaker and Cena for the last decade). Rusev is a monster type character so his attacks have to really be protected for future storytelling. Styles isn't. And just because Roman recovers from something huge doesn't mean the rest of the roster who are lower on the totem pole will.

IDK, I kinda am ok with the dude shrugging off a few chair shots to the chest protecter to win.

Also I kinda red Xavier (of all TND guys) kicking out of the Whirling Dirvish simply means that that that power bomb/neckbreaker thing they did on Raw will be their new finisher.

Usos/The Club - **3/4
Kalisto/Rusev - ***
TND/Vaudevillains - ***
IC Title - ****1/4
Ambrose/Jericho - *1/2
Women's Title - *1/4
WWE Title - ****1/2

I mean, I marked it down a lot, in the sense that the foreboding doom of it impacted my ability to get into the other stuff, because none of that Really Mattered until the interference started.

Like, imagine that at some point Reigns had just pinned Styles after a great back and forth. You would be marking out and saying "wow they let that finish, that's great" (while quibbling about details), and it would inherently have been a better match and made everything better. That didn't happen, so it's fair to mark down for that stuff dragging it down from where it could be IMO.

Noted the same about Kalisto, so that did bug me, but really Rusev getting a babyface champ to truly insta-tap clean largely wipes out Kalisto's mid-match failures to sell properly. Match could have been even better if Kalisto did a better job, but I still think that Rusev's monster status was higher after the match than before it.

This I agree with. In some ways I like it better in terms of enhancing Rusev that he didn't milk the injuries.

Kalisto was supposed to be injured going into the match. How is a monster heel scary when wrestlers just fully recover from their attacks at the next show or sooner? Why even have the injury angles if the matches are going to be the same regardless of the injury, with guys running around like they aren't hurt? Just terrible no consequences storytelling. No wonder nobody cares when they do beatdowns and attacks; everybody knows they won't mean anything.

I do agree. I just think that the fact that he ultimately insta-tapped saves the story and build somewhat, and that many will forget the middle stages of the match.

Yeah, I agree that the superhero comeback was really bad.

On a side note, I mentioned in the other thread that Bryan Alvarez tweeted that the cage match went as long as it did, because they cut some other segment completely out. That segment was a Stephanie McMahon talking segment. I think that alone should be enough to mark up the Ambrose/Jerico match at least a full star

not in order, don't care.

Lana/Rusev on the preshow ****
A little predictable from a heel answering twitter Q's but I still enjoyed it.

The preshow panel
Maybe one day they'll collectively get a 1/4th of a star.

Corbin vs Ziggler **

Is this crap over yet? That Corbin slam that gets the near fall should be a finishing move for somebody tho. It's just ridic to get up from that.

Vaudevillians vs New Day *1/2
The guy who takes every pin on the New Day kicks out of the Vaudevillians finisher then pins them for the win. That stuff should be reserved only for wherever the hell the Ascension are tier. (which is probably where they're going to be soon). Tag team div is just so dire since vince seems wants everyone to be some **** form of Legion of Doom. That won't fly in this era.

The Miz (c) vs Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens vs Cesaro (IC Title): ***1/4. A little lower than most, it was a very good match but when Cole instantly throws up a "match of the year" right after it ends you know it probably shouldn't be. I started dozing off somewhere toward the end in this one, too much way too obvious scripted crap for my liking but that happens on these multi man ones.

*1/2

Points also deducted when they didn't troll with the plant when that was part of the feud. It's just annoying in this type of match of the old "I have to go up and grab a new weapon" when perfectly good better ones are just lying on the floor to basically ever get 4*. Too long, too boring, tl'dr.

WOAT JBL's 1866 Jersey reference. It's the biggest problem with JBL (outside of odd reigns explaining), he loves old and super old references. Go away with that ****. It might work if the rest of the panel would just troll/make fun of him for each one but they don't.

It's also just weird hearing the smackdown guy do actual pbp then go straight to the raw commentary.

Usos vs The Club. *1/2
Can we get a better name? anything? Balor club soon? please?
idk about this, a lot wasn't much then the end where they're standing at the ring pointing at the usos (presumably) was just odd. Also the part where they've had what 7 matches in a month now in some form? Dear WWE, that doesn't build a feud, it saturates it.

Kalisto v Rusev **
Kalisto got WAY too much offense/superheroing in just to lose like that; wasn't remotely believable. Then again they had Rusev lose to SIN CARA (not by DQ). Why would you have a guy riding a tank a year ago losing to a guy who doesn't win on superstars? **** if I know.

AJ Styles vs LOOK IT'S ROMAN REIGNS ***1/2

everyone knew AJ was never winning here but it was a very good match till the spotfest time till the obv prediction of forearm spear finish. Rollins and soon to be Cena back should help a lot. Unless that just means Rusev gets buried again then **** off.

Meltzer says:

Baron Corbin vs Dolph Ziggler - 2.25
Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows vs The Usos - 3
Rusev vs Kalisto - 3
New Day vs Vaudevillains - 2
The Miz vs Cesaro vs Kevin Owens vs Sami Zayn - 4.5
Dean Ambrose vs Chris Jericho - 2
Charlotte vs Natalya - 2.5
Roman Reigns vs AJ Styles - 4.5

I don't agree with the 4.5s, but I can at least understand. What I really don't get is the 2.5 for Charlotte/Natalya. For the second straight PPV, that match is about 2 stars too high.

Think those are all defendable except women's match which was really really bad.

Ambrose/Jericho was also cruising toward 1 star (or worse) until it picked up at the end imo