Monday, JUNE 8 – 4:20 PM (CT)

A couple of weeks ago, I praised Ring of Honor for making their title matches and title changes seem like huge events. The American Wolves defeated Kevin Steen and El Generico to win the ROH Tag Team Championships. Not only was the match amazingly entertaining, but the buildup was great too. It felt like a really big deal to not only see a title match, but to see the title change.

Fast forward to last night's WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view, where four major titles changed hands and there were five title changes all together. Now, while ROH could afford to have more title matches (non-title matches on a DVD release should not happen), WWE's title changes for the sake of having a swerve should not happen either.

Let's begin with Chris Jericho defeating Rey Mysterio for the Intercontinental Championship. This title change made sense and Jericho pulling off Mysterio's mask definitely progressed the program in a logical fashion. While this feud has been good for the IC Title, it has not elevated it too much because the importance of the belt is on the back burner here. Nevertheless, this has been a very fun series of matches.

Of course, Tommy Dreamer became the ECW Champion, much to the surprise of pretty much everybody. I did not mind this and I'm curious to see where they go with it, but I’m wondering if the title change was done for the moment and not for any type of long term situation. I am hoping Dreamer having the title leads to a feud with Jack Swagger, allowing him to take over as General Manager for Tiffany. It would also be nice to Christian moved to Smackdown.

Moving onto the WWE Championship, Batista defeated Randy Orton to win the belt. I predicted this, but only because I thought it would be a ratings ploy to get people to tune into Raw tonight and possibly witness Orton winning the title back, especially if Batista is really injured (see the main page for that story). I don't agree with doing this with your flagship championship. Even if he wins the title back, Orton was weakened by this loss.

At the end of the show, we were treated to an amazing ladder match between Edge and Jeff Hardy. Hardy won the title, which surprised me. Then C.M. Punk came down to cash in the Money in the Bank briefcase, which did not surprise me. After two cool spots with Hardy kicking out of the GTS and nearly pinning Punk, Punk won the title.

Honestly, I am not quite sure what WWE was going for here. Last year when Punk cashed in on Raw to defeat Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship, it shocked the hell out of everyone. Punk cashing in at Extreme Rules was not shocking, and it seemed to disappoint the live crowd. Now, if WWE was looking to turn Punk heel, mission accomplished.

As usual, Hardy was super over with the crowd. When he won the title, the crowd loved it, especially after the hard fought, classic ladder match. Punk came down and in heelish fashion, defeated Hardy for the title in 63 seconds. Now, this is the WWE Universe, so it was okay for Punk to beat a heel Edge in similar fashion to win the title, but not okay for him to beat Hardy like that.

Tell you what, I have been looking forward to a heel Punk and the fact he is the champion on Smackdown only makes me more excited. Punk delivering "straight edge" heel promos to Jeff Hardy would be money. Edge can then recharge a bit and come back as a strong babyface, because the show needs them. I'm guessing these title changes will not stick for long, but hey, WWE is not ROH.

RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE: