WWE Extreme Rules 2018: Live Review, Results, Highlights, and Grades

Photo Source: WWE.com

Roman Reigns vs. Bobby Lashley

Result: Bobby Lashley defeated Roman Reigns via pinfall

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Color me surprised that this isn’t the last match of the night. Not only did it seem like the WWE thing to do, and not only did it seem like it was a de facto number one contender’s match for the Universal Championship, Monday’s episode of Raw seemed to position this as the match.

Reigns got a bit of a pep talk from the B-Team backstage, and it must have resonated because he spent most of the match in command. The match started veeeeeery slow — like, 1980s WWF main event slow. I’m also not sure how Lashley survived this match without a concussion (maybe he didn’t).

But as slow as this was at the beginning, things pickled up at the end. The last five minutes or so of the match definitely made up for the first portion. I mean, Roman just up and threw Lashley out of the ring, hard. He did that nasty looking leg drop as Lashley was trying to get back into the ring. And the Big Dog took a big overhead suplex onto the announce table, which looked like it hurt.

In the surprise of the night, Lashley picked up a 100% squeaky clean victory over Reigns via the spear. Like, who saw that coming? When was the last time Roman got beaten clean like that? We gotta be talking pre-Intercontinental Championship reign, right? I’m very curious to see where this goes next, because now I’m confused. But it was a lot better than many were anticipating, even with the slow start.