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Favorites to Win at Sunday’s Extreme Rules Event

Here are the betting odds for Sunday’s Extreme Rules event, courtesy of BetWrestling.com:

Universal Championship #1 Contenders Match
Samoa Joe 4/7 (64%)
Seth Rollins 5/1 (17%)
Finn Balor 9/2 (18%)
Bray Wyatt 7/1 (12%)
Roman Reigns 10/1 (9%)

Cruiserweight Championship Match
Neville(c) 4/9 (69%)
Austin Aries 7/5 (42%)

Intercontinental Championship Match
The Miz 4/7 (64%)
Dean Ambrose(c) 5/4 (44%)

RAW Women’s Championship Match
Alexa Bliss 8/15 (65%)
Bayley 11/8 (42%)

RAW Tag Team Championship Match
The Hardys 8/11 (58%)
Cesaro and Sheamus evens (50%)

Check back here on Sunday for our live play-by-play coverage!

Major Update on WWE’s Plans for India

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that according to the WWE, when one includes all forms of WWE Product related consumption, India comes out as the number one market surpassing even the United States of America.  According to them, on the basis of product consumption, India is at the first position followed by the USA and South Africa.

However, since consumption and income are two different things, there arises an issue when it comes to India. WWE doesn’t really earn much from the Indian market. Therefore to tackle this obstacle, WWE has opened a brand new office in India in order to garner more revenue from the Indian market.

This sudden increase in attention towards India comes at a time when the Impact Wrestling’s tour of India ended. Both the companies are allegedly looking to widen their markets in India as the sub-continent has a colossal wrestling fandom.

It is also being reported that because of this very reason, Jinder Mahal’s title reign will not be short lived. Plans can always change because WWE doesn’t have any tour plans for India anytime soon.

Possible Spoiler for the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

As seen on Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live, Shane McMahon announced the first-ever Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match that will see 5-women fighting for a chance to win a briefcase that allows them the opportunity for a shot at the Women’s Championship anytime they want. Those names include Carmella, Tamina, Becky Lynch, Natalya and Charlotte.

Dave Meltzer indicated prior to the announcement that the match would see only four competitors because there was expected to be two women matches at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view event. With the announcement of five competitors, it is very unlikely now that two matches will take place on the card.

Bryan Alvarez suggested on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE may have changed it to five competitors because the winner of the MITB ladder match may cash it in later in the night. This could be the reason why the Women’s championship match isn’t being defend on the card now and the number of competitors was switch from four to five.

No Rematch for Next Brock Lesnar Challenger

Dave Meltzer reported on the latest installment of Wrestling Observer Radio that Brock Lesnar’s Universal Title defense at the Great Balls of Fire event against the winner of Sunday’s Fatal Five Way #1 contender’s match will be a quick program.

Meltzer explained that with Braun Strowman slated to face Brock Lesnnar at SummerSlam, there will be no rematch against who challenges him at Great Balls of Fire. Meltzer indicated that either Seth Rollins or Finn Balor will win Sunday’s match at Extreme Rules for the opportunity to face Lesnar.

Dinner with the King Recap – ‘This is Your Life’ Reaction, Invading the ECW Arena, Hatred from Fans, More!

Lawler opens today’s show speaking about the ‘This is Your Life’ segment featuring Alexa Bliss and Bayley on this week’s episode of RAW. He says that WWE probably wishes they had another opportunity to re-write this or scrap it altogether, because it certainly didn’t go as planned.

He says that you have to give WWE creative a break from time to time because they’re producing 5 hours of live television every single week of the year, and not everything is going to be must-see television. It’s impossible to write the best segment of all time every single show, so he has no issue cutting WWE some slack on this segment.

Moore says he’s not buying that, and he feels that somewhere along the way someone should have pulled this segment from the show. It was very difficult to watch and it probably should have been scrapped during rehearsals. Lawler says that he’s worked on RAW and Smackdown for many years and he has seen a lot of stuff that was hard to watch. Sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you hope.

Lawler also points out that this was live television, and anything can happen on live television. Vince McMahon and the company’s philosophy is that nothing can go wrong on live television, because whatever happens happens.

Kevin Owens Blocks WWE Musicians CFO$ on Twitter

Steve is the Founder of RingsideNews, AllWrestlingNews, and Wrestling dot News. He has been writing about professional wrestling since 1996. He first got into website development at the time and has been focusing on bringing his readers the best professional wrestling news at it’s highest quality.

Can Anything Help The Raw Product Right Now?

No matter how hard (or not hard) they may try, Raw fails to produce a good show throughout the entire three hours. This past Raw was no different.

The beginning half of the show was solid. You had a six man tag match featuring Dean Ambrose and The Hardy Boys taking on The Miz, Sheamus, and Cesaro. A little bit later on and you had the triple-threat match between Bray Wyatt, Samoa Joe, and Finn Balor. Both were great, fun matches.

Then comes Alexa Bliss and her “This Is Your Life” skit on Bayley. While WWE thought they were doing something good here, it was quite the opposite. Let me be blunt, it was horrible. Possibly the worst segment I have seen of 2017.

Every episode of Raw has something that just brings the crowd out of it. It may be skits like these or just boring matches that kill the crowd so bad that the main event match cannot revive them. Maybe some of the hate is just unfair, but a lot of it happens for a reason. So what in the world can Raw do to bring the fans back in?

One thing WWE could do is a shocking turn. Remember in 2014 when Seth Rollins betrayed Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns or NXT Takeover Chicago when Tomasso Ciampa turned on Johnny Gargano?

These were turns that left the crowd stunned with their mouths dragging the floor. Is there any turn today on Raw that could drop jaws like that?

Rumors are circulating that Cass is set to turn on Enzo, but that won’t get people talking nonstop. However, there is one tag team in the division that would send noise through the crowd if they broke up violently. That team would be The Hardy Boys.

Now I understand they just returned to the WWE, but think about how shocking it would be based off of that one reason?

Let’s say that at Extreme Rules, Sheamus and Cesaro defeat The Hardy Boys to become the new Raw Tag Team Champions. While this infuriates both brothers, Jeff takes it worse. This leads to him attacking Matt (bet you didn’t see that coming) and laying him in a pool of his own blood (metaphorically speaking).

It would take the air out of the arena simply because no one would be expecting it. Fans would expect Matt to turn on Jeff before Jeff turns on Matt. It would keep the fans wondering what is going to happen next which means more eyes will be tuning in to Monday Night Raw.

WWE Trying To Erase “This Is Your Life” Segment from Existence

WWE is already trying to forget the “This Is Your Life” segment took place on Monday’s episode of RAW featuring Alexa Bliss and Bayley.

In the YouTube highlights for Monday’s show, WWE only posted part of the segment which shows Bayley walking down to the ring to confront Bliss. The company titled the video segment, “Alexa Bliss takes Bayley on a painful trip down Memory Lane” with no reference at all to “This Is Your Life.” They even deleted Twitter footage that they were posting during the show, trying to forget that it even happened.

The segment drew fierce criticism from fans on social media and even those in the arena tried to hijack it with “delete” chants.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Women’s Tournament, Bobby Roode Deserves Main Roster, Is the PPV Model Dead? More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo asks Gilbertti about the ongoing criticism towards Jinder Mahal by some wrestling fans, who accuse him of taking steroids. Gilbertti informs that he has tried steroids in the past and from his experience, it’s entirely possible to look the way Mahal does without taking steroids. With a lot of hard work in the gym and a good diet you can achieve a physique such as Mahal’s.

Lane informs that IMPACT Wrestling and Ed Nordholm are discussing bringing Billy Corgan back into the fold, to help mediate the discussions between the promotion and Matt Hardy. The thought is that Corgan can be of some value when it comes to bridging the gap between all the parties concerning the Broken Universe.

Russo says that Nordholm has far too many distractions right now, and his recent memo to wrestling media is a prime example of this. In this memo, Nordholm made public various private conversations between himself and Matt Hardy in an attempt to prove that he has been telling the truth. Russo says that Nordholm should be more focused on trying to revive IMPACT’s on-air product.

John Morrison on WWE & Impact Copying Lucha Underground

While speaking to the Buzzards Wrestling Podcast, former WWE Superstar John Morrison asked about WWE and Impact Wrestling copying Lucha Underground’s filming style for matches like “House of Horrors” and “Total Non Stop Deletion.” Morrison responded:

“Totally agree. I feel like Lucha Underground was the first promotion that’s really integrated the gritty, action movie feel with wrestling. Shooting the vignettes that stitch Lucha Underground together, with coverage like a TV show or a movie has set that trend.

“You’re right, the Total Deletion and WWE House of Horrors and even some of the costumes in WWE. I feel the trends were started in Lucha Underground.”

You can check out the full interview here.