So, after the main event of Raw and watching this video ...
Let's think of the reactions and do some math and vary our options based on THIS Main Event alone and nobody else considered. (So no outrageous or outliers who are already making the IC title picture or U.S. title picture great and no deus ex machina NXT call-ups)
Seth Rollins = Smarks love him, we're all happy he's champion, but he's someone who we don't want to hate as a heel either, so the crowd doesn't want to step on him by cheering him due to his dedication to his kayfabe villain character, so again we get the detachment. He's the top heel of the show, and gets booed per usual, so he's doing his job.
Big Show = Two Words: PLEASE RETIRE!
Kane = Same Old Shit chants start as soon as he's tagged in...people cannot get invested in him due to the fact that he doesn't even resemble a character. He's just some old guy with black pants. He's barely even a Direct of Operations, he barely directs any operations on screen to begin with.
Randy Orton = Same old lack of reactions during every Raw After Mania as a face where people troll the whole match. Which is what he gets yearly if he's face on the Raw After Mania. Since he's a face that lots of people don't want to like, but feel they can't "boo" him due to his dedication to kayfabe, it causes people to just detach themselves from the match. Now these reactions aren't entirely his fault, but considering he's usually the source of every one of these crowd detachments, they didn't even get re-invested when he was making a face comeback, they just kept trollin. It's also a source that every time he gets back in the title picture, people instantly don't want him to be champion so they withdraw their reactions. It's happened, EVERY TIME he's been face and gets in the title picture. It's also known in general that he was originally Triple H's hand picked person to be the guy for this company back in the Evolution days. Every time he goes against Triple H as the face, it fails because while Triple H is a heel (with the authority and what not), everyone knows Triple H is universally---no no no, FACTUALLY a better wrestler than Randy Orton and on those grounds people have respect for Triple H. He's also related to Cowboy Bob Orton Jr. It's not really relatable when someone who's been known for backstage politicking having the curse of anyone who was originally picked by Triple H being stamped with the complaint of being over exposed and having your father get you into the business. What average joe can feel like they're in the same situation? Considered by many to be an over the hill wrestler who can still put on main event caliber matches, on paper, I don't think any wrestling fan can say that "Randy Orton is a better wrestler than Tyler Black (aka. Seth Rollins)". You don't have to be a better wrestler to be over, but with all that stacked against Orton's character and the universal feeling that he is not the one who should be getting pushes considering his legacy, you'll get awkward reactions against Seth Rollins when it comes to the title being on the line with a heel so dedicated (but liked on the internet) to his position and a face so dedicated to a static character (but not so liked by the average wrestling smark nor even really hated) for that match.
Roman Reigns = Standard boos, as soon as he's tagged in, the crowd goes from trolling to just plain boos. They participate in the match at least and it's a reaction but it's a contrary reaction. So during these segments of the match, it's a bizzaro world. Plus it doesn't help that not everyone is related to a Samoan Dynasty so that's not really relatable either. Reigns is the opposite of Orton, he's before he gets to the top of the hill like Rocky-Mavia was when Vince tried shoving him down peoples throats too early just because of his race. Reigns has all the tools in the world to grab the brass ring but being that he is the Reality Era scapegoat for to get people angry only to make people happy again at Wrestlemania, that's just it, he's the only one still hurting a little bit from it. This is however ideal of a situation if you want to have contrary reactions at Extreme Rules in the Chicago crowd to make it a hilarious and fun match due to crowd reactions. You can make it feel like the internet's guy is beating WWE's handpicked guy. That's another option.
Ryback = Having people chant WE WANT RYBACK and the crowd participating in the match when Ryback is in it. (Unless he's doing filler quick tags) Pops galore for Ryback when he picked up The Big Show. He may be a big guy, may not be the perfect wrestler, but it's clear that Ryback was the most over person in that match as a babyface. This is the guy who always had huge pops very early in his babyface run. The internet knows Ryback had the roughest struggle out of all of the guys in the matchup (arguably). Being someone who worked out hard every day, was eliminated from Tough Enough in 2004, having his face push being taken away from him for a lack of a good reason, having very sympathetic interviews in shoot interviews, and telling his story on camera. Known for being a very nice man backstage who's always thinking about the company. The one big guy people kinda tolerate and maybe even like that could satisfy the "big man" quota. This is the way of the intended heat.
So doing the math by these reactions and weighing out the options for Extreme Rules, I've got a conclusion. So Seth is the heel that is champ, many wanted him as champ, but in doing so, we need a protagonist. Extreme Rules is in Chicago, so let's weigh out our options. Whoever you do pick to face Rollins at Extreme Rules will probably be in a tag match or something with Kane and Big Show (or two seperate singles matches, let's hope not..)
If you want awkward reactions where people don't know what to react, with awkward crowds, then Randy Orton is your man being that people don't necessarily want Randy Orton to be champion and having a very typical WWE prototype superstar beat a Ring of Honor prodigy.
If you want to go the route of a contrarian crowd where the heel is cheered like a god and the face is booed like he kicked a puppy, then you'll want to have Roman Reigns face Seth. There's actually nothing wrong with this if you just want a fun main event for Extreme Rules. The crowd would make it intense and in a meta-way, it'd make it a very happy night to see Seth Rollins beat Roman Reigns and have many false finishes where you give the crowd heart attacks. Roman Reigns is a good sport who has done nothing but take the boos like a champ and can actually provide moments to actually internally piss off a crowd when he actually does a good move (you know you hate it when you see Reigns do a plancha and actually feel slightly impressed by it, be honest). Then you can have the crowd be salty and still say stuff like "YOU STILL SUCK" like they did with Cena at One Night Stand 2006. So that's how you create a smarkamania moment.
If you want completely genuine reactions for that Chicago crowd, then throw Ryback at Seth Rollins. You'll get legit face vs. heel reactions, since Ryback is someone you know hasn't politicked ever in his career, was never "handpicked" or ever been too overexposed. Then (most likely) if you have Seth Rollins beat him, the crowd will feel sad and Seth Rollins being champion under those conditions might help Reigns' case. That alone wouldn't be enough, you could have Randy Orton and Roman Reigns (on paper a dream team for the ladies and the dudebro crowd) beat the ever loving hell out of The Big Show and Kane in some hardcore matchup where both Orton and Reigns shine the most, just raising hell against two people who nobody cares about anymore, therefore boosting some tolerance to the over the hill and not yet on top of the hill wrestlers. (Although no matter what you do, Orton being champion as a babyface just cannot be accepted due to the fact that it goes against the "push new stars" motto, so for him to be champion and work intendedly, he'd have to bee heel. Take notes from Sheamus who is finally getting actual things chanted at him and not just generic cheers and generic boos).
So there you have it, which route do you want to go? The awkward route, the contrary crowd route or the intended crowd route?
Vince, Triple H, The Big guy may be your transitional answer until you may be pushing Dean Ambrose later this year!
Let's think of the reactions and do some math and vary our options based on THIS Main Event alone and nobody else considered. (So no outrageous or outliers who are already making the IC title picture or U.S. title picture great and no deus ex machina NXT call-ups)
Seth Rollins = Smarks love him, we're all happy he's champion, but he's someone who we don't want to hate as a heel either, so the crowd doesn't want to step on him by cheering him due to his dedication to his kayfabe villain character, so again we get the detachment. He's the top heel of the show, and gets booed per usual, so he's doing his job.
Big Show = Two Words: PLEASE RETIRE!
Kane = Same Old Shit chants start as soon as he's tagged in...people cannot get invested in him due to the fact that he doesn't even resemble a character. He's just some old guy with black pants. He's barely even a Direct of Operations, he barely directs any operations on screen to begin with.
Randy Orton = Same old lack of reactions during every Raw After Mania as a face where people troll the whole match. Which is what he gets yearly if he's face on the Raw After Mania. Since he's a face that lots of people don't want to like, but feel they can't "boo" him due to his dedication to kayfabe, it causes people to just detach themselves from the match. Now these reactions aren't entirely his fault, but considering he's usually the source of every one of these crowd detachments, they didn't even get re-invested when he was making a face comeback, they just kept trollin. It's also a source that every time he gets back in the title picture, people instantly don't want him to be champion so they withdraw their reactions. It's happened, EVERY TIME he's been face and gets in the title picture. It's also known in general that he was originally Triple H's hand picked person to be the guy for this company back in the Evolution days. Every time he goes against Triple H as the face, it fails because while Triple H is a heel (with the authority and what not), everyone knows Triple H is universally---no no no, FACTUALLY a better wrestler than Randy Orton and on those grounds people have respect for Triple H. He's also related to Cowboy Bob Orton Jr. It's not really relatable when someone who's been known for backstage politicking having the curse of anyone who was originally picked by Triple H being stamped with the complaint of being over exposed and having your father get you into the business. What average joe can feel like they're in the same situation? Considered by many to be an over the hill wrestler who can still put on main event caliber matches, on paper, I don't think any wrestling fan can say that "Randy Orton is a better wrestler than Tyler Black (aka. Seth Rollins)". You don't have to be a better wrestler to be over, but with all that stacked against Orton's character and the universal feeling that he is not the one who should be getting pushes considering his legacy, you'll get awkward reactions against Seth Rollins when it comes to the title being on the line with a heel so dedicated (but liked on the internet) to his position and a face so dedicated to a static character (but not so liked by the average wrestling smark nor even really hated) for that match.
Roman Reigns = Standard boos, as soon as he's tagged in, the crowd goes from trolling to just plain boos. They participate in the match at least and it's a reaction but it's a contrary reaction. So during these segments of the match, it's a bizzaro world. Plus it doesn't help that not everyone is related to a Samoan Dynasty so that's not really relatable either. Reigns is the opposite of Orton, he's before he gets to the top of the hill like Rocky-Mavia was when Vince tried shoving him down peoples throats too early just because of his race. Reigns has all the tools in the world to grab the brass ring but being that he is the Reality Era scapegoat for to get people angry only to make people happy again at Wrestlemania, that's just it, he's the only one still hurting a little bit from it. This is however ideal of a situation if you want to have contrary reactions at Extreme Rules in the Chicago crowd to make it a hilarious and fun match due to crowd reactions. You can make it feel like the internet's guy is beating WWE's handpicked guy. That's another option.
Ryback = Having people chant WE WANT RYBACK and the crowd participating in the match when Ryback is in it. (Unless he's doing filler quick tags) Pops galore for Ryback when he picked up The Big Show. He may be a big guy, may not be the perfect wrestler, but it's clear that Ryback was the most over person in that match as a babyface. This is the guy who always had huge pops very early in his babyface run. The internet knows Ryback had the roughest struggle out of all of the guys in the matchup (arguably). Being someone who worked out hard every day, was eliminated from Tough Enough in 2004, having his face push being taken away from him for a lack of a good reason, having very sympathetic interviews in shoot interviews, and telling his story on camera. Known for being a very nice man backstage who's always thinking about the company. The one big guy people kinda tolerate and maybe even like that could satisfy the "big man" quota. This is the way of the intended heat.
So doing the math by these reactions and weighing out the options for Extreme Rules, I've got a conclusion. So Seth is the heel that is champ, many wanted him as champ, but in doing so, we need a protagonist. Extreme Rules is in Chicago, so let's weigh out our options. Whoever you do pick to face Rollins at Extreme Rules will probably be in a tag match or something with Kane and Big Show (or two seperate singles matches, let's hope not..)
If you want awkward reactions where people don't know what to react, with awkward crowds, then Randy Orton is your man being that people don't necessarily want Randy Orton to be champion and having a very typical WWE prototype superstar beat a Ring of Honor prodigy.
If you want to go the route of a contrarian crowd where the heel is cheered like a god and the face is booed like he kicked a puppy, then you'll want to have Roman Reigns face Seth. There's actually nothing wrong with this if you just want a fun main event for Extreme Rules. The crowd would make it intense and in a meta-way, it'd make it a very happy night to see Seth Rollins beat Roman Reigns and have many false finishes where you give the crowd heart attacks. Roman Reigns is a good sport who has done nothing but take the boos like a champ and can actually provide moments to actually internally piss off a crowd when he actually does a good move (you know you hate it when you see Reigns do a plancha and actually feel slightly impressed by it, be honest). Then you can have the crowd be salty and still say stuff like "YOU STILL SUCK" like they did with Cena at One Night Stand 2006. So that's how you create a smarkamania moment.
If you want completely genuine reactions for that Chicago crowd, then throw Ryback at Seth Rollins. You'll get legit face vs. heel reactions, since Ryback is someone you know hasn't politicked ever in his career, was never "handpicked" or ever been too overexposed. Then (most likely) if you have Seth Rollins beat him, the crowd will feel sad and Seth Rollins being champion under those conditions might help Reigns' case. That alone wouldn't be enough, you could have Randy Orton and Roman Reigns (on paper a dream team for the ladies and the dudebro crowd) beat the ever loving hell out of The Big Show and Kane in some hardcore matchup where both Orton and Reigns shine the most, just raising hell against two people who nobody cares about anymore, therefore boosting some tolerance to the over the hill and not yet on top of the hill wrestlers. (Although no matter what you do, Orton being champion as a babyface just cannot be accepted due to the fact that it goes against the "push new stars" motto, so for him to be champion and work intendedly, he'd have to bee heel. Take notes from Sheamus who is finally getting actual things chanted at him and not just generic cheers and generic boos).
So there you have it, which route do you want to go? The awkward route, the contrary crowd route or the intended crowd route?
Vince, Triple H, The Big guy may be your transitional answer until you may be pushing Dean Ambrose later this year!