Extreme Rules (2022)
The 2022 Extreme Rules was the 14th annual and final Extreme Rules professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on Saturday, October 8, 2022, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the first Extreme Rules event to be held in October and on a Saturday, as well as the second Extreme Rules event to take place at this venue after the 2019 event. The concept of Extreme Rules is that the event features various hardcore-based matches. Six matches were contested at the event, all of which contained a hardcore stipulation. In the main event, Matt Riddle defeated Seth "Freakin" Rollins by submission in a Fight Pit match in which Daniel Cormier served as the special guest referee. In other prominent matches, Finn Bálor defeated Edge in an "I Quit" match, Ronda Rousey defeated Liv Morgan by technical submission in an Extreme Rules match to win the SmackDown Women's Championship for a second time, and in the opening bout, The Brawling Brutes (Sheamus, Ridge Holland, and Butch) defeated Imperium (Gunther, Ludwig Kaiser, and Giovanni Vinci) in a six-man tag team Good Old Fashioned Donnybrook match. The event also saw the return of Bray Wyatt, who had been released from his WWE contract in July 2021. The event received generally positive reviews from critics, who gave high praise to the six-man Donnybrook match and the "I Quit" match, the latter for its dark tone and ending, but felt the SmackDown Women's Championship match was the weakest of the night. They also felt that the main event's stipulation was not utilized enough. The return of Wyatt was acclaimed for its mystery, buildup, and execution. Critics also praised the variety of stipulation matches, unlike the previous year's event, which only had one hardcore-based match. This would be the final Extreme Rules due to WWE discontinuing some of its gimmick events, with the October 2023 slot given to a reinstated Fastlane. Production Background Extreme Rules is an annual professional wrestling event produced by WWE since 2009. The concept of the event is that the event features various matches that are contested under hardcore rules and generally features one Extreme Rules match. The defunct Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion, which WWE acquired in 2003, originally used the "extreme rules" term to describe the regulations for all of its matches; WWE adopted the term and has since used it in place of "hardcore match" or "hardcore rules". On October 25, 2021, WWE revealed its 2022 major event schedule for the Raw and SmackDown brands, with a to be announced event for October. On June 13, 2022, that October event was announced as Extreme Rules and it would take place on Saturday, October 8, 2022, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia was the home of the former ECW promotion from 1993 to 2001. This marked the first Extreme Rules to be held