Extreme Rules 2021: 3 things that went wrong on the PPV

What can you say about this past Sunday’s Extreme Rules PPV other than “Well, WWE certainly made some…interesting choices on this show”.

To be clear, WWE put some good things on this show (though most of the credit for those things rests with the wrestlers, not the creative team), but when we look back on this PPV in a decade, no one will mention those moments as the primary takeaways.

Instead, most fans will remember these missteps.

These are the three things that went wrong at Extreme Rules 2021.

The finish to Roman Reigns vs. “The Demon” Finn Balor

Welp, we’ve finally reached the point where WWE now feels the need to get creative with their overbooked finishes. The latest example of the promotion outthinking itself came during the closing moments of the Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor Universal Championship match.

Most fans probably expected interference from The Usos to “protect” “The Demon”. Heck, they may have even expected Reigns spearing Balor through WWE’s brittle barricade (seriously, those spots happen way too often). However, they surely weren’t ready for Balor’s swift resurrection nor the top rope snapping as Balor appeared poised to beat “The Tribal Chief”.

Once again, WWE got way too cute here. If they didn’t want “The Demon” to lose clean (because we all knew Reigns wasn’t losing the title here), maybe they shouldn’t have booked Balor to lose a title match on TV to necessitate calling on “The Demon” in the first place.

Worse yet, this did nothing to protect Balor given that he got speared and pinned by Reigns. Plus, it sort of makes Reigns look like a fluke, though that isn’t as much of a big deal given that he’s a heel and WWE has booked him strongly up to this point.

If nothing else, it did have me sounding like Arthur Fleck for a good 20 minutes, so kudos to WWE for that.

Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch ends in a disqualification (how EXTREME!)

Everything said about the finish to Reigns vs. Balor applies here. If WWE didn’t want Becky Lynch nor Bianca Belair to lose at Extreme Rules, then why did they bother booking the match in the first place (you could also ask why WWE bothered to schedule this show altogether, but we’re past the point of no return there).

This is a situation where having time limits for matches would’ve been nice. Instead, we got a returning Sasha Banks running in and attacking Belair for the DQ. As great as it was to see “The Boss”, there are better ways to get to a triple threat between her, Belair, and Lynch.

At least that match will be as good as what Belair and “The Man” accomplished on this show before the non-finish.

Alexa Bliss mourns the loss of Lilly

There isn’t much to say about Charlotte Flair vs. Alexa Bliss in terms of match quality. It was a solid outing for both in that regard and it ended with a conclusive finish — Flair pinning Bliss clean, though the stuff with the Lilly that came right before it was silly.

The post-match angle, however, is a different matter. After Flair ripped apart Lilly following the match, fans then got to see several minutes of Bliss acting distraught over the loss of her doll. The segment felt like it lasted an hour, and little things like seeing the seltzer cap that was supposed to make Bliss foam at the mouth didn’t make this an easier watch.

(To be fair, the crowd was into this, but it’s worth noting that the show took place in Bliss’ hometown, so that probably helped.)

We’ll see if this leads to Bliss dropping this character altogether, but it’s just as likely that they do some sort of goofy funeral for Lilly.