Extreme Rules (2015)

The 2015 Extreme Rules was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was the seventh annual Extreme Rules and took place on April 26, 2015, at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, marking the second Extreme Rules event to take place at this venue after the 2012 edition. The concept of Extreme Rules is that the event features various hardcore-based matches.

Eight matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. Four of the main card's matches were contested under a hardcore stipulation. In the main event, Seth Rollins defeated Randy Orton in a Steel Cage match to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. In other prominent matches, Dean Ambrose defeated Luke Harper in a Chicago Street Fight, The New Day (Big E and Kofi Kingston) defeated Cesaro and Tyson Kidd to win the WWE Tag Team Championship, John Cena defeated Rusev in a Russian Chain match to retain the WWE United States Championship, and Roman Reigns defeated Big Show in a Last Man Standing match. This was also the third Extreme Rules event to not feature the titular Extreme Rules match, after the 2009 and 2011 events.

The event was available on the WWE Network in over 140 countries. On pay-per-view, it had 56,000 buys (excluding WWE Network views), down from the previous year's 108,000 buys.

Extreme Rules was an annual professional wrestling event produced by WWE since 2009. The concept of the event was that it featured various matches that were contested under hardcore rules and generally featured 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, using it in place of "hardcore match" or "hardcore rules". The 2015 Extreme Rules event was the seventh Extreme Rules and took place on April 26, 2015, at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, marking the second Extreme Rules event to take place at this venue after the 2012 edition. The event aired on pay-per-view (PPV) worldwide and was livestreamed on the WWE Network.

The event comprised eight matches, including one on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and SmackDown.

At WrestleMania 31, John Cena defeated Rusev to win the United States Championship, marking Rusev's first defeat since appearing on WWE's main roster. On the April 2 episode of SmackDown, Rusev invoked his rematch clause to face Cena for the title at the event. On the April 13 episode of Raw, following Cena's title defense, Rusev attacked Cena with a chain and Lana revealed that the match between Cena and Rusev would be a Russian Chain match.

At WrestleMania 31, Bad News Barrett had lost his Intercontinental Championship in a seven-man ladder match. In the following week, Barrett repeatedly attacked the new champion, Daniel Bryan, during and after matches and invoked his rematch clause for Extreme Rules. However, when Bryan was declared unable to compete due to an injury, Barrett was instead given a match against Neville on the event's Kickoff pre-show.

At WrestleMania 31, Randy Orton defeated Seth Rollins. Later that night, Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract during the scheduled WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns and pinned Reigns to win his first WWE World Heavyweight title. On the April 6 episode of Raw, Orton defeated Ryback and Reigns in a triple threat match to face Rollins for the title at the event. On the April 13 episode of Raw, Orton defeated Tyson Kidd and Cesaro in a handicap match to earn the right to choose a stipulation, while Rollins defeated Kane to also earn the right to choose a stipulation. Rollins chose to ban Orton's finisher, the RKO, while Orton made the match a Steel Cage match. On the April 20 episode of Raw, Triple H announced that Kane would be the gatekeeper to the cage for this match at the event.