Steel Cage Match: Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H
Like The Masked Man, I am a huge Triple H fan, and I’ve personally enjoyed all of Lesnar’s non-Goldberg work so far. But this match, like the other two matches in this rivalry, was both fun and incredibly boring. I like watching these two guys fight, but because of the reasonable “no-blood/minimal amounts of actual brutality” constraints placed on how far they can go, these matches have always felt like they were holding something back.
Even with Lesnar selling a knee injury for most of the match about as well as you can sell something like that, the lack of “color” (specifically, red) in this match was more detrimental than both their previous matches combined. In a cage, it’s just as much “two men enter, one man leave” as it is “people are going to bleed like stuck pigs”. Unless you can put on a show like Owen and Bret did at SummerSlam, or FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ACTUALLY ESCAPE THE CAGE (sorry), you should probably blade if your cage match is the main event of a PPV.
Of course, there were moments like Triple H hitting Brock’s knee with the chair as he tried to climb out of the cage, Heyman sacrificing himself for the “Greater Good” and the genuine affection that Lesnar/Heyman have for one another as a partnership that made this a fitting (hopefully) blowoff match.
That doesn’t mean I would have been happy about paying money for it.
Match: .4
Final PPV Tally: 3.1 | Avg/match: .4375 (.44, if you’re nasty)
In conclusion (I guess), this was precisely what many expected: a good pay per view which was prevented from being a very good to great PPV because of a lack of pizzaz, blood, and Damien Sandow. You’re welcome.
[…] those who missed the Extreme Rules PPV review, or forgot because I spent last month reviewing Payback for With Leather (sorry for the […]