Come Sunday, things will get “Extreme” over at Scottrade Center, as the WWE invades St. Louis for the pay per view event. Now, I know that this pay per view has been heavily scrutinized by myself and other wrestling fans for being filled with a lot of rematches and missing some key stars. However, I think this could be a great pay per view if the WWE play their cards right.

The Miz and Cody Rhodes will open the even with a pre-show match. Looking at this match, it shows just how much the WWE could use a solid match to open the show. I think it also shows just how unhappy the WWE is with Rhodes and The Miz, especially. The Miz has main event talent that was evident as he headlined WrestleMania 27 with John Cena. He is as gifted on the mic as any superstar in the WWE, but he seems to have had a falling out with WWE writers. The poor guy can’t get a decent storyline. I’m going with The Miz in this match. I think the crowd will be hot and he will draw from their energy. Afterall, St. Louis is a big wrestling city and the fans know when they are watching good wrestling. Rhodes and The Miz will put on a great opening match, there’s no doubt about that.

One match that most fans are bummed out about is Alberto Del Rio vs Jack Swagger for the number one contender to Dolph Ziggler’s title. I feel the WWE handled this poorly. There’s no doubt that Ziggler needs to sit this one out, but why not throw Big E Langston into the match. This could create a good storyline between Langston and Ziggler. Ziggler suffered a concussion that was pretty serious. He suffered memory loss and still has lingering effects from the kick to the head he took on Smackdown. I hate to say it, but I don’t really care who wins this match. Neither opponent does much for me. I will go with Del Rio, because I expect Swagger to fall back down the ranks to lower mid-card status.

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The WWE is in dire need of something fresh. I don’t know if it’s a character or a storyline. At this point, anything would have helped liven up the three slow hours from Monday night.

There were a couple strong points to the show. I really liked the way Raw started. Bringing Fandango and Chris Jericho out for a dance contest was not the way I would have started, but it turned out to be a great lead-in for their match at the pay per view on Sunday. I will talk more about the match in my Extreme Rules preview later this week. As I have said in the past, Fandango is a star. He and Jericho have great chemistry, which should result in a great wrestling match.

Besides the opening segment, I really didn’t care much for anything else. It’s clear the WWE is going with the Brock Lesnar/Triple H match as the main event of Extreme Rules. I liked the ending, with Triple H calling out Lesnar. Personally, I think the WWE could have taken this feud way further, but it is what it is. Raw ending with Triple H getting the best of Lesnar, could mean a big victory for Lesnar on Sunday, but we will have to wait and see.

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Hi there! Sorry I haven’t written in a while. Life’s been a wonderful mix of busy and hectic recently. Thankfully for you who appreciate my inane posts about baseball statistics, I should have some more free time to post on a regular basis.

I’m gonna switch the format of this entry up a bit. Rather than go with a straightforward “who’s hot, who’s not” style, I’m gonna mix in news with a few tidbits from the last few weeks.

- The loss today drops the Cardinals a half game behind the Rangers for the best record in baseball, but the Cardinals still have the best record in the NL thanks to a strong last couple weeks. The Cardinals have gone 9-2 the last two weeks and sit at 23-13 overall, thanks to the best starting rotation in the majors (by a pretty decent longshot – more on this later).

- Those of you who were fortunate enough to attend Friday and/or Saturday’s games saw two of the best pitching performances in recent history. In fact, Friday night’s start by Shelby Miller, going from gamescore, actually ranks as THE best nine-inning performance in Cardinals history.

For those of you unfamiliar with gamescore, it’s a measurement to determine how effective a pitcher was. The score starts at 50 and then adds points for strikeouts, batters retired, etc. and subtracts points for hits, runs, walks, and such. Miller’s gamescore Friday night was a 98, outscoring every other Cardinals’ pitcher in history (for a 9-inning game, that is; other had higher gamescores, but pitched at least 10 innings). Yes, even Bob Gibson and Chris Carpenter.

- Not to be outdone, Adam Wainwright carried a perfect game into the fifth inning yesterday, and a no-hitter into the eighth. The 40 consecutive batters retired between the two of them tied a major league record, and the 50 consecutive batters to go without a hit fell one batter short of tying a major league record. Not too shabby.

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Thank god for Blues hockey, because Monday Night Raw was a snooze fest. I think that this episode truly shows how much trouble the WWE is in regarding lack of talent. It’s not good. With the exception of the Alberto Del Rio/Dolph Ziggler segment, everything felt lame.

The show started off with a dud when Cena and Ryback squared off on the mic. Ryback is god-awful on the mic, and Cena cracking his immature jokes do nothing but make him look like he’s pandering to kids. Add Vicky Guerrero to the mix, and you get a bad segment that has just gotten worse. Yes, the post-WrestleMania swoon is in full effect and this may signal a lackluster pay per view in St. Louis in just two weeks.

For the first half of the program, WWE touted that Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar paid a visit to WWE headquarters. Wow! Brock Lesnar, a WWE employee, pays a visit to his place of employment! Who friggin’ cares! Now, it was kind of cool watching him destroy Triple H’s office, but other than that, the segment did nothing for me. Triple H coming out to the ring and giving his two cents, did nothing for me either. WWE made Lesnar look like less of a monster, and more of a big dumb animal.

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As WWE Extreme Rules, the first pay per view after WrestleMania, draws closer, the WWE finds itself in a pickle. Top star of the company, John Cena, apparently suffered an Achilles injury while on tour in Europe. The injury has been confirmed, but we all know that in the wacky world of wrestling, a confirmation really holds no clout. Do I think the injury is real? Yes. Do I think the WWE is going to use it to their advantage? It depends on how you look at it. Word got out early Sunday morning about the injury. I immediately started to think about Extreme Rules in St. Louis on May 19. This could be one of the worst scenarios the WWE could find itself in. The top star in wrestling today, unable to go at the first pay per view following WrestleMania. Not a good spot for WWE at all.

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