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WWE Extreme Rules 2016: Dean Ambrose Hurt by Asylum Match

By Carl Gac

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Looking at why the Asylum Match at Extreme Rules did more to hurt Dean Ambrose than to help him.

We’re about 24 hours post-Extreme Rules, and one thing still strikes me from the night. It’s not the return of Seth Rollins. It’s not the epic Fatal Four Way Intercontinental title match. It’s not the amazing performances from AJ Styles and Roman Reigns in the main event. It’s the fact that the Asylum Match was so poor that it did more to hurt Dean Ambrose than it did to make him a viable top tier talent in the WWE.

In theory, the match could have been some kind of magnificent, brutal, hardcore war. What we got was a disjointed, strangely boring match that played out to mostly silence from the crowd in attendance (apart from chants of “We Want Rollins). With Ambrose’s whole gimmick being the “Lunatic Fringe”, and the introduction of the “Ambrose Asylum” talk show segment on WWE tv, it was only a matter of time before one of the creative team came up with a match that revolved around the Asylum theme. I think many people could probably have thought of something better than what we were actually served up.

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When I say that I don’t mean it as a knock on the two men in the match. It’s more of a knock at the fact that in the current era, whether it’s still classed as the “PG Era”, or as we keep having shoved in our faces the “New Era”, the use of weapons is never going to have the impact it would have in the past. If this match had happened in the Attitude Era we’d have seen all manner of chair shots, strikes with the barbed wire board and more.

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The one thing that really woke the crowd up was when Ambrose pulled out the black velvet bag and then covered the ring in thumb tacks. Jericho was eventually driven into the tacks, after what felt like forever, and Ambrose got the three count for the win. It was inevitable that Dean would win the match, having him come up with the gimmick match and then not win would be like having The Undertaker lose every Hell in a Cell match he’s ever taken part in. But even with the win, it does nothing for the Dean Ambrose character or his future going forward.

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It’s safe to say that this was the final throes of the Ambrose vs. Jericho feud, and at least Ambrose walked out victorious in the end. But he gained little from all the weapons based shenanigans, why would you go for a mop when there’s a barbed wire board a few feet away? If you really wanted to act the Lunatic then you’d want to inflict as much pain on your opponent as you could.

Dean Ambrose has to be one of the main men for the WWE going into the next few months. The return of Seth Rollins, to attack WWE Champion Roman Reigns to conclude the show, should be the building blocks for a triple threat feud between the three former members of The Shield. But in the world of WWE, it’s more than likely that Ambrose will be pushed back into the mid card and stumble from one match to another, whilst his former friends get the big pushes at the tip of the WWE iceberg.

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The Asylum match could have been the first steps on making Dean Ambrose a bona fide threat to the entire WWE, but will be remembered as the worst match on a night that saw men like Zayn, Owens, Cesaro and The Miz steal the show in a simple match that was outstanding. Dean Ambrose is the Lunatic Fringe, following that Asylum Match he’s just not quite as crazy as he could have been portrayed.

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