All 8 WWE Extreme Rules PPVs, Ranked
By Tim Sherry
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credit: wwe.com
1. Extreme Rules 2012
Here it is. The best Extreme Rules show of all-time. This card featured three potential Match of the Year candidates and parts of it seemed like a throwback to the pre-PG era. But let’s get some dirty laundry out of the way first. The Orton/Kane Last Man Standing Match was a plodder. Both Cody Rhodes Intercontinental title and Layla’s Women’s title wins were both less than 5 minutes long. Brodus Clay picked up a win over Vince’s favorite whipping boy, Dolph Ziggler, which was pretty bad because, well it included Brodus Clay. And Ryback squashed a couple of local jobbers.
On to the good stuff. A month earlier at WrestleMania 28, Sheamus defeated Daniel Bryan in embarrassing fashion in just 18 seconds. What a joke. So at Extreme Rules they got 22 minutes to work a 2 out of 3 falls match that was an absolute psychological mat clinic. That’s what 2 of your brightest young stars deserved at Wrestlemania. That was followed by a scintillating Chicago Street Fight between CM Punk and Chris Jericho. It was particularly nice that Punk got to pick up a victory in front of his hometown fans.
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But at the end of the day, the best match of the night was the main event, an Extreme Rules match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar. Both guys bled and battered each other silly. Cena, particularly took a savage beating from Lesnar who was competing in his first match in the WWE in over eight years. Say what you want about the Cena superman-booking finish but it honestly made sense and it really didn’t matter who won. Both guys looked great. Extreme Rules was not only the best PPV of 2012 but it’s also a top 15 PPV of all time. Tough to beat that.