Extreme Rules 2018 Spotlight: 30-Minute Iron Man Match for the Intercontinental Championship

Quite often when I put together these PPV Spotlights I talk about a match that I think will prove to be a quality show. Usually it’s a pairing that on paper looks like the competitors will mesh really well, sometimes it’s the passion within the story that could bring something special out of the bell to bell action. It can even be a match that I think has flown under the radar and could surprise people. But it’s rare that I can talk about the potential of a match and have as much concrete evidence to support that as I can this time round.

That’s because I’m writing about the always-reliable Dolph Ziggler defending his Intercontinental Championship against WWE’s MVP of 2018 so far, Seth Rollins.

The roll that Rollins has been on is incredible by WWE’s standards. He has almost single-handedly proven that if WWE lets their talent shine in the ring, they can prove their worth to everyone watching. He hasn’t been involved in these intricate stories, it’s pure and simply been about competing for a championship.

Fantasy Booking Series: Backlash

Here’s the next installment of my fantasy booking series! The last edition covered the week from the Superstar Shake-Up to the Greatest Royal Rumble, and now it’s time to cover the fallout from Jeddah to Backlash. There are quite a few title rematches here which booked themselves on the card, but the big story is that in Saudi Arabia Roman Reigns aligned himself with Paul Heyman. Why? The answers are here…

Fantasy Booking Series: Greatest Royal Rumble

This has been long overdue. I finally sat down and worked out where I wanted to go with the fantasy booking I started way back at the Superstar Shake-Up, and I’m going to be working on it from now on. I’m going back to my original format of posts for the time being, and hopefully once I catch up with the real life timeline I’ll go back to the Shake-Up format of post.

As a reminder, I didn’t set myself any rules before – I have full control of NXT call-ups, heel/face turns, and the formation or break-up of tag teams. But since writing in the return of Big Cass and his subsequent departure from the company, I’m going to say that if someone genuinely leaves or joins the company, I must adhere to that timing. For example, I’m not going to bring Neville back, and not just because I’m not dealing with the Cruiserweight division. Equally I’m not suddenly going to have Kenny Omega in WWE, unless he actually does sign in real life. Similarly, the matches WWE already announced for Greatest Royal Rumble and Backlash have mostly been kept the same.

This post only covers a week of programming, one Raw, one SmackDown and the Greatest Royal Rumble. It’s not a huge amount, but I think it’s a good way to ease back into these articles. So now that this is back (the link to the Shake-Up is at the top of the article if you want a refresher), let’s get back into it!