The thing is, it wasn't Extreme.
WWE are clearly in a PG era, and this is understood, but the billing of this as a night where the rules are thrown out of the window is, frankly, a little false.
Failure to live up to promises to go hardcore aside, this was a tidy PPV offering which saw nothing groundbreaking but a clutch of decent, well-told matches that wiled away three hours.
Mind you, had you missed the opening five minutes you could be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled on the latest episode of Raw.
Triple H was attacked backstage by Sheamus to cast doubt on their match taking place, before an unscheduled ShoMiz took to the ring.
As Miz crowed about how great the duo were, Smackdown GM Teddy Long decided to book them in a match.
As Miz continued to speak, so the number of opponents increased. This ended up being a gauntlet match with any team scoring a win over ShoMiz being awarded a title shot.
After seeing off R-Truth and John Morrison, then despatching MVP and Mark Henry, the reigning champ was downed by The Hart Dynasty, accompanied by Bret Hart.
David Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd will now try for the belts tonight on Raw.
The scheduled card began with CM Punk and Rey Mysterio putting together a fine contest which eclipsed their battle at WrestleMania.
For many this will be the match of the night. Mixing Rey's brand of high spots with some gorgeous counter wrestling by Punk, it was only ruined by a lack of clean finish.
With Rey on top, a hooded figure emerged from under the ring to assist Punk, who won the match to prevent his head being shaved as per the match stipulation.
Speculation is already rife that the assist was made by the returning Joey Mercury, formerly of MNM, who may be the newest Straight Edge Society recruit.
The Cryme Tyme explosion took place next with JTG beating Shad in a limp strap match. The two men were hampered by a mediocre build, crowd apathy and a stipulation match which always seems to necessitate a formulaic finish.
The first world title defence was featured early in the night as Jack Swagger attempted to retain his sneakily obtained belt by beating the rampant Randy Orton. Amazingly, he did so.
Swagger, who was booked to lose to Morrison on Smackdown, shocked us by not only winning, but winning cleanly against The Viper.
Orton had set up a chair on which to deliver an RKO but Swagger turned the tables, dropping Randy back-first onto the steel then hitting a Gutwrench Powerbomb for the win.
Again the match itself failed to live up to its 'Extreme' billing. A notable moment saw Orton hit Swagger in the head with a dustbin lid but the flimsy items are not like steel chairs, so little should be read into this.
As Orton headed back up the ramp after giving Swagger a moody post-match RKO he passed Sheamus, appearing in order to boast at putting Triple H on the shelf.
The Game, though, emerged to play up a superhero you-cannot-keep-me-down routine and the two brawled for a while.
The match was fine, but again simply did not feel like a truly Extreme contest with both men going all out. Sheamus' win was solid booking with good storyline development, there was just something missing once again.
As Michelle McCool's music played, our chatroom understandably called this the moment to take a toilet break or put the kettle on.
But anyone who did actually missed a reasonable Divas match, with Beth Phoenix snatching the belt from McCool in an improved outing for the females of the company.
What an Extreme Makeover match is we are still to find out, although weapons used included an iron, ironing boards and a broom. Nothing sexist there then.
But if the Divas exceeded our hopes, we are afraid Chris Jericho and Edge failed to live up to what is expected of these two quality performers.
Perhaps it was paced too slowly. Perhaps the lack of babyface heat for Edge affected things too much.
A week ago we might have said that getting a great match from a cage stipulation was hard in this day and age, but Kurt Angle and Ken Anderson blew that theory out of the water last week at Lockdown.
There was nothing inherently wrong with this match, it was simply a little slower and less exciting than expected. And Edge's win after a second spear of the match felt extremely anti-climactic.
It was left to John Cena and Batista to close the show without the safety net of being followed by Shawn Michaels and Undertaker — and they did an admirable job with another quality match.
The match had moments of excitement such as Batista taking an attitude adjustment through the announce desk and humour — Big Dave telling a young, female Cena fan "I hate you too" was hilarious — before Cena took charge as expected.
The finish will surely polarise the audience.
In a match where the object was to prevent your opponent from reaching their feet for a 10 count, Cena tied Batista to the ring post by his legs and retained the title.
Some will say lame and cheap, others will think original and creative. Judge for yourself, although we quite liked it.
All in all, Extreme Rules had some good matches and good storytelling that made this a good night.
Just not extremely good, that's all.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/2947661/WWE-Extreme-Rules-PPV-review.html#ixzz0mSG6jWDC
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