WWE Extreme Rules preview

Read on for how I'd book tonight's WWE PPV.

Keep in mind with all of these I'm not necessarily booking what I personally want to see. I'm booking what I think makes sense from a storyline perspective.

Kickoff:
I say The New Day wins in a heelish fashion (say, Xavier puts Kofi's feet on the ropes for leverage on a pin) to more or less do a double-turn. Obviously the former champions are due a rematch, and we eventually get The New Day vs. PTP.

Extreme Rules:
Nikki beats Naomi to get Naomi more frustrated. Next month, we get Nikki vs. Naomi vs. Cameron given her history with Naomi and also wanting to go for the Divas' Title. This will eventually get us to Naomi vs. Paige, and prolong Nikki's reign for Charlotte to take the title from her in June or July. I'm thinking Charlotte vs. a monster heel in Tamina for Summerslam. They can have Total Divas BS on the pre-show. How many Total Divas fans watch the PPVs anyway?

If Bryan's 100%, he can successfully defend against Barrett. Part of me wants to see Barrett win via TKO by hitting the injured Bryan with a Bull Hammer, but I don't think that would fly with the audience at large. Maybe Barrett can do that after the match to set up a rematch next month?

If Bryan's not cleared, Barrett informs the crowd of the bad news and tries to win the title via forfeit or countout. Cue Neville's music, leading to a win for the former NXT Champion. We can do Bryan vs. BNB next month, or maybe even make it a triple threat? I wouldn't be against adding Neville even if Bryan is OK to go.

Ambrose and Harper tear things up. Ambrose wins. He's lost enough on PPVs already. I think this should start the show.

I know everyone hates Cena and wants to see Rusev get the title back, but keeping Cena as a mid-level champion putting on great matches with people looking to prove themselves is much more exciting than him losing only to go back up the card while Rusev remains at U.S. Title level. If Reigns was champion, it would make sense to move Rusev up to face him. Since Rollins is champion, the temptation would be to have Cena go for the top title if he wasn't U.S. Champion. Anyway, Rusev tries to choke Cena out with the chain and carry him on his back while touching the four corners, but Cena tags them behind him and turns things around before the final corner. He KOs Rusev with the chain to tag the fourth corner and win. I'd much rather have that corny finish than a dominant win by Cena. If I'm booking, we never see a "tag the corners" match in a serious feud on a PPV again. A Russian chain match is an awesome idea if you take out the tagging corners. It's hard to take that seriously.

Sheamus gets a decisive win over Ziggler, maybe even doing the post-match stipulation with Ziggler unconscious. He should be going for the U.S. Title next. Ziggler can try to get back in the game by challenging Rusev to prove he can hang with monsters.

Reigns beats Big Show. It's not like either outcome will please fans. Some kind of "they both lose" ending would only mean another big PPV match between them, and I don't see why anyone would want to see that.

As much as part of me wants Rollins to win clean, there's something more interesting they can do. Kane tries to prevent Rollins from escaping only to be jumped by J&J Security. Obviously he can take both of them out with little difficulty, so in order to win, Rollins needs help from the newest member of The Authority: Luke Harper. This is why Harper's match went first. As Kane's busy with Mercury and Noble, Harper attacks him from behind with a chair (or preferably something more in tune with his character, but nothing immediately comes to mind). Rollins is then able to escape the cage after hitting Orton with a pipe or something else J&J can slip to him. 

On Raw, The Authority removes Kane as Director of Operations. However, Kane saw this coming and booked two matches for Payback before Raw came on the air (i.e. when he still had the ability to make matches). The first is a tag match between himself and Roman Reigns vs. Big Show and Luke Harper. The second, headlining the show, is Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Championship with the following stipulation: if anyone interferes on Rollins' behalf, Orton wins the championship. Ditto if Rollins tries to get DQ'd or counted out.

In reality, we're probably getting Rollins vs. Orton vs. Reigns for the title, but I'd like for them to wait until July to put Reigns back in the title picture, or even August at Summerslam. He needs more time to "earn" that right.

More wrestling coming up.