WWE’s next pay-per-view, Extreme Rules 2021, has already seen a few changes in the past week. The WWE Championship match between Bobby Lashley and Randy Orton was bumped to this week’s Raw, and by the end of the night, Big E was the new champion thanks to his Money in the Bank contract. Meanwhile, the Universal Championship match got its own shake-up when Finn Balor revived his alter-ego “The Demon” for his rematch with Roman Reigns. WWE then announced on Thursday that The Usos would be defending their SmackDown Tag Team Championships against The Street Profits in a rematch from last week’s SmackDown at Madison Square Garden.
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Surprisingly, none of the matches announced for the Sept. 26 show have any stipulations so far despite it being an Extreme Rules event. Last year’s pay-per-view, given the subtitle “The Horror Show” had such stipulations as Seth Rollins and Rey Mysterio’s “Eye for an Eye” match, a one-sided Extreme Rules match between Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler and the cinematic Wyatt Swamp fight between Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman. You can see the updated lineup for Extreme Rules below:
- WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns vs. “The Demon” Finn Balor
- SmackDown Women’s Championship: Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair
- Raw Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair vs. Alexa Bliss
- United States Championship: Damian Priest vs. Sheamus
- SmackDown Tag Team Championships: The Usos vs. The Street Profits
The topic of bringing back Balor’s painted persona has often been brought up in interviews, though he’s gone back and forth on how he feels about the persona. He told Metro last year that its usage on the main roster felt more like a crutch, which is why he was hesitant over bringing it back during his second NXT run.
“I feel like when I made the transition to Raw and SmackDown, the working environment there – the way things happen so fast and the way TV is produced so fast – that character wasn’t really designed for that environment,” he told Metro. “I feel like we should have handled it better. I should have handled it better in the sense that I should have been the one to put my foot down and say, “Nah I don’t think we should do this. I think the return to NXT has helped me protect not only Finn and The Prince, but my own integrity and also the Demon.”
“I feel like the way we used it, we kinda used it as a bit of a crutch,” he added. “As cool as the demon was, it was making Finn less cool in the sense that Finn would get his ass kicked and then the Demon would come and save the day.”
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