Traditionally the month after Wrestlemania is a bit quiet.  That’s partly because the WWE ends all its major storylines at the big show, and partly because they usually haven’t given a great deal of thought to what comes next.  So the following pay-per-view, which used to be Backlash, has generally been a bit forgettable, at least from a storyline standpoint.

The WWE have rejigged their pay-per-view schedule for 2010, so as to cut back the number of shows, and to pursue their policy of giving every show a theme of its own.  So Backlash has been dispensed with, and we’re jumping straight to Extreme Rules, the show where… well, this takes a bit of explaining.

Extreme Rules started life in 2005 as ECW One Night Stand, a reunion show for the influential indie promotion ECW.  That did so well that the WWE decided to revive ECW as their C-level show.  This turned out to be a miscalculation.  The new ECW didn’t do especially well, and it soon became clear that it was not capable of sustaining its own pay-per-views.  So One Night Stand was converted into an “extreme rules” show which included matches from the higher-profile Raw and Smackdown rosters.  And then, after four years, they figured out that you can’t really have an annual show called One Night Stand and rechristened it Extreme Rules.

“Extreme Rules” used to be the WWE’s preferred term for ECW rules – which, effectively, meant no rules at all.  As a promotion, ECW’s gimmick was that their shows were complete anarchy; the “rules” defined what counted as a pinfall or a submission, and that was about it.  Of course, as a side effect, this required a rethink of what constituted a heel, since if there are no rules, you can’t cheat.  ECW heels ended up being defined more by character than anything else.  Over the years, the WWE has allowed the term “Extreme Rules” to drift, and it now seems to be an umbrella term for any sort of gimmick match.  And so what we have here is… well, a show made up of gimmick matches.

The build to this show has been overshadowed somewhat by The Volcano That Grounded Europe.  Unfortunately for the WWE, the eruption took place while almost all of their wrestlers were in the course of touring Europe.  This completely derailed Monday night’s episode of Raw, which should have been the go-home show, and was presumably intended to contain a couple of major plot points.  Unfortunately, the Raw crew got stuck in Belfast, triggering a makeshift show using the beleaguered Smackdown roster, who in turn had had to cross Europe by coach to get a flight from Madrid.  In particular, Raw seemed to be heading towards ShowMiz v. The Hart Dynasty for the tag team titles… but they only got halfway through the story, and so that match isn’t on the show after all.  This might explain why a couple of low-end Smackdown matches have been tacked on to the bottom of the card.  All the Raw matches have had their build-up undermined, as has Smackdown’s world title match (since challenger Randy Orton was also stuck in Belfast).

There’s another factor to bear in mind.  Monday night will see the annual WWE draft, which basically reshuffles the Raw and Smackdown rosters.  (The third show, NXT, is now a rookie showcase and doesn’t get to participate in the draft any more.)  So the writers may need to tie up some storylines in order that the wrestlers can be re-assigned to different shows.  The draft should be particularly interesting this year because it’s increasingly obvious that Smackdown is the B-show by some distance.  It’s currently marooned on MyNetworkTV, and in the autumn it’s moving to the wilderness of SyFy (replacing NXT, which is currently looking for another home).  Does this mean that a transfer to Smackdown is a demotion?  Not necessarily.  Smackdown has a smaller audience, but it also has less of a glass ceiling; a wrestler stuck in the midcard on Raw might well be delighted to be sent to Smackdown where he’ll have the chance to perform in the main event, perhaps to return to Raw in a year or so’s time as an established main eventer.

1.  WWE Title, Last Man Standing: John Cena v. Batista. Cena regained Raw’s version of the world title from Batista at Wrestlemania.  This is Batista’s automatic rematch.  Now, Batista’s character has undoubtedly been reinvigorated by his recent heel turn.  Nonetheless, yet another title switch would obviously be silly, and so it seems a foregone conclusion that Cena will be winning.  (In fact, Batista’s best chance of winning is for the WWE to have one of its semi-regular panic attacks that the ending might be too obvious.)  Frankly, this looks to be mainly an exercise in getting another month out of the Cena/Batista feud in order to kill time before the Draft provides Cena with fresh opponents.

A Last Man Standing match is basically a match which can only be won by knockout.  I’m not a fan of them, because their equivalent of a two-second near-fall is to have the referee laboriously count to nine-and-a-bit.  Consequently, they tend to slow to a crawl as they go on.  Sometimes that can make for epic drama, but usually it just makes for a tiresome slugfest.  Cena/Batista isn’t a match I would expect wonders from under normal rules; as a Last Man Standing, I expect it to be downright dull.

2.  World Heavyweight Title, Extreme Rules: Jack Swagger v. Randy Orton. This is a little more interesting.  Jack Swagger is a midcard wrestler from Raw who won the Money in the Bank Ladder Match at Wrestlemania, the prize being a world title shot which he could cash in at literally any time.  Swagger’s victory was unexpected to say the least, because the company had done nothing with him in months, other than the occasional comedy skit.  Presumably there was a last-minute change of plan, because if they’d intended to elevate him to the main event then they’d surely have done a better job of laying the groundwork.

Swagger promptly cashed in the title shot by ambushing Smackdown’s world champion Chris Jericho and effectively stealing the belt.  Jericho (and his babyface challenger Edge) both already got their rematch on Smackdown, which ended with Swagger stealing the pin and retaining.  We’ll come back to that feud later.  In the meantime, Swagger will be defending against Raw’s Randy Orton, on the surprisingly logical grounds that Orton has beaten Swagger twice recently, and therefore ranks as a deserving contender.

Orton is in an odd position right now.  He’s spent most of his main event career as a heel, doing the “sadistic psychopath” gimmick.  He’s quite good at it.  He’s also popular enough in the role that it became inevitable that he would have to be turned babyface at some point, presumably in a Steve Austin-like antihero role.  And so Orton’s lackeys in the Legacy faction turned on him, in a storyline which was intended to turn him babyface.  But the on-again, off-again build was singularly undramatic, and the storyline didn’t really work.  That leaves Orton as an acknowledged main eventer who really doesn’t look very comfortable working as a babyface.  It clearly doesn’t come naturally to him, and he’s understandably struggling to figure out how his established persona works in that role.  Nonetheless, as a main eventer taking on a midcard upstart, he’s probably going to get cheered tonight.

Swagger has been booked as a weak heel champion, so on paper (in storyline terms) Orton ought to be the heavy favourite.  And with him just having switched sides, it seems an odd time to have Orton lose to a midcard babyface.  But on the other hand, if they’re serious about elevating Swagger – and god knows the company needs more main eventers – then he has to retain.  Normally I’d say that the best bet was some sort of screwjob which allowed Swagger to retain and the feud to continue, with both wrestlers presumably ending up on Smackdown after the draft.  But it’s very hard to do screwjobs in an Extreme Rules match, because the heel literally can’t cheat.  The best bet is outside interference, perhaps from the Legacy, who could really use a decent storyline right now – but that feud’s supposed to be behind Orton.  Tough one to call.

As Swagger has been losing left right and centre, the WWE’s usual reverse psychology suggests that he’s retaining on Sunday.  Match quality is hard to call; both guys have talent but Swagger is relatively untested at main event level and Orton is not at home in his current role.  It should still be decent, though.

3.  WWE Women’s Championship, “Extreme Makeover match”: Michelle McCool v. Beth Phoenix. Obligatory comedy match with stupid props.  The less said about it the better.  Titles should never change hands in comedy matches, and so McCool ought to retain.  It’s almost guaranteed to be both short, abysmal, and about as funny as the plague.

4.  Rey Mysterio v. CM Punk. If CM Punk loses, he has to shave his head.  This makes slightly more sense when you bear in mind Punk’s current gimmick as the “inspirational” leader of the Straight Edge Society, a sort of cult group who have shaved their heads to symbolise their acceptance of the Straight Edge lifestyle.  Punk hasn’t.  Because he’s, um, special or something.  He’s been feuding with Mysterio since before Wrestlemania, and this is the second match of the feud.  Mysterio won the first; something tells me that Punk is winning the second so that they can build to a third with something definitively on the line (Rey’s mask versus Punk’s hair being the obvious one).  A two-nil defeat for Punk in this feud seems ill-advised given the strength of the Straight Edge Society gimmick.  And yes, if you’re wondering, this is just a regular wrestling match with a bet attached, despite the “Extreme Rules” title.

I’d expect the actual match to be pretty good.  The only thing wrong with their Wrestlemania match was that it needed more time, and that wasn’t their fault.

5.  Street fight: Triple H v. Sheamus. This is basically just another way of saying “Extreme Rules”, to make it sounds as though they aren’t doing the same gimmick twice on one show.  Sheamus, and yes, that’s how they spell it, is an Irish wrestler who had a surprise run as WWE champion in late 2009.  He looked surprisingly comfortable in a main event role.  He looks the part while remaining distinctive (mainly by being a pale redhead in a heavily tanned world), and he’s not a bad talker.  He’s a solid enough wrestler to hold his own as a main eventer, and now that they’ve elevated him, they ought to pursue it.

In practice, at Wrestlemania, he lost to Triple H.  This was silly.  Triple H is so well established as a main eventer that he’s bulletproof.  He should have lost.  But the WWE has a bad habit of drawing back from letting people beat the established stars.  If they’ve got any sense, they’ll give Sheamus the win this month.  A two-nil loss would be insane.  That’s not to say it would astonish me, though.  The match should be solid.

6.  Cage match: Chris Jericho v. Edge. Jericho surprisingly retained the World Title against Edge at Wrestlemania, where you would normally have expected the returning babyface to triumph.  Presumably it just didn’t fit the company’s plans for some reason – a likely possibility being that Edge is being drafted to Raw, and therefore couldn’t be the Smackdown champion.  Anyway, this means Edge has never got his decisive win over Jericho, nor did he get it in the three-way title rematch against Swagger on Smackdown.  So, one assumes that this match exists to give Edge his much-deserved win.  Why the cage?  Because it’s Extreme Rules and it needs a gimmick.  (Traditionally the point of a cage match was to stop outside interference and prevent the baddie from running away, but neither of those have been factors in this story.)

I’d expect Edge to win here, and I’d expect it to be great.  Jericho/Edge is a main event calibre match, and indeed it was one of the advertised main events for Wrestlemania just last month.  Frankly, it’s probably the biggest draw on this card by some distance.

7.  Strap match: JTG v. Shad Gaspard. This is the break-up angle for Cryme Tyme, a long running midcard tag team who had a memorable gimmick as loveable mock thugs.  Basically they just wandered around stealing things and had a catchy theme tune.  That said, Cryme Tyme were also Very Midcard Indeed; they never even won the tag team titles, during a period of WWE history when there were two versions going around and practically everyone had had a shot.  JTG – the smaller, faster, more energetic one – is fairly obviously the better wrestler of the two, but by the structure of tag matches, he’s been doomed to spend most of his time getting beaten up so that he can make the heroic tag to his bigger mate at the end of the match.  Shad, the bigger mate, is a large bloke, and that’s about it.  This may have been the flaw with the act: the better wrestler never really got to show off.

So perhaps this break-up will be good news for JTG, who is taking the babyface role.  His problem is that he’s not very big, and the WWE is slow to get behind smaller wrestlers.  Shad, on the other hand, looks more like the WWE’s traditional favoured wrestler, but doesn’t really seem like someone who could achieve success on his own.

I don’t expect much from a Shad Gaspard match, and particularly not when it’s a strap match – a horribly contrived gimmick where the two wrestlers are connected with a leather strap, and the aim is to touch all four turnbuckles in sequence.  (And yes, the WWE website does confirm that those are the rules for this match.)  It’s not a very good gimmick, and it tends to limit the wrestlers rather than provide any opportunities.  For what it’s worth, I’d have JTG win, because he ought to have better prospects as a solo act… but I suspect he won’t, and I suspect the match will be terrible as well.

Worth buying? Um.  It’s got Jericho/Edge in a cage match, which is likely to be very good.  Punk/Mysterio should also be decent.  But it’s got some dodgy main events and a even dodgier undercard.  I think I’ll pass on this one.