WWE booked itself into a corner going into Sunday night's Extreme Rules pay-pre-view, and the fans and Superstars paid the price. 

While waiting for Roman Reigns to take on Brock Lesnar at an upcoming event in Saudi Arabia, WWE needed somebody to challenge the universal champion at Extreme Rules. Finn Balor was the choice, and the company rolled major dice on his "Demon" persona getting put on the line in the match. 

That was as risky as it gets. Ruining one of Reigns or The Demon in a clean loss wouldn't work, so it was pretty clear it would be a dusty finish in some fashion. 

But what WWE decided to do and fans got was probably the most unintentionally hilarious and awful thing since that infamous finish between Bray Wyatt's The Fiend and Seth Rollins in 2019. 

Balor, after successfully fending off The Usos outside the ring, got speared and appeared to be down for the count. Then something amazing happened—the lights in the arena turned red, the lead-up to his music started playing and he popped back up. 

It was an epic, cool, must-see power-up moment that we've never seen from Balor before, which surely signaled good things, right? He proceeded to beat the tar out of Reigns' helpers under red lights while his music played, tossed Reigns into the ring and went up to the top rope. 

The rope broke, Balor fell, got hit by a Spear and lost. 

So, yeah, WWE booked itself into a corner and didn't know how to get out, or so it seems. It wasn't enough to just have interference play a big role or something, though. Things had to get cute. What ensued was what appeared to be a botch in a sequence of events that blurred the lines between accidental and real in the worst possible way. 

And just like that, Balor's a dweeb for losing in such a manner, Reigns needed an act of otherworldly interference and a ring that usually holds under the weight of Otis doing flips off the top broke down. This was the perfect way to actually get the title off The Tribal Chief and the crowd was going wild for it. It could've been a modern all-timer. 

Rest assured WWE will try to write its way out of this hole. Oh, Paul Heyman messed with the ring or something. But that wasn't conveyed to viewers in the slightest, and analyst Pat McAfee said: "What type of bush league? How the hell does that happen?"

Indeed, Pat, indeed. 

Onlookers have to understand the backstory here. Balor is a beloved Superstar for a number of reasons. He was an international sensation well before joining WWE. His NXT run was the stuff of ages. His Demon persona was never really defeated on the main roster and was only used for the most special occasions. 

Balor was so beloved by WWE itself that he was hot-shotted into being the first-ever universal champion, even over the likes of Reigns and Seth Rollins. He was going to be the guy. He had to quickly vacate the title due to injury, but the writing was on the wall. 

Meaning, it was pretty epic to see Balor's Demon come knocking to reclaim his title off Reigns on Sunday night. It was especially intriguing because WWE doesn't really have any other supernatural/mystical threats anymore: Undertaker is gone, and Aleister Black and Bray Wyatt got cut.

There was a glimmer of hope that WWE might give Balor the win and title since Reigns-Lesnar doesn't really need a title attached to it. 

But, no. The history doesn't appear to matter and Balor was indeed just a holdover feud. Now The Demon has an ugly loss on his record. The idea with the rope shenanigans was to avoid the character losing "clean" so it doesn't seem as bad. Instead, it's somehow worse. He doesn't look strong, he looks like he had a banana-peel moment and took a loss. 

Worst of all, fans know all too well how this goes now. With Reigns off to be the solo main event scene against a part-time talent, Balor will go back to the midcard, maybe partake in some tag team matches and not sniff the major spotlight again for a long time. And when The Demon does come back, it'll have to be with the stench of this finish on it. 

As always, WWE has an outside chance of salvaging this disaster. But it has to want to, too. Reigns is on to other things regardless. Maybe this finish sounded like a great conceptual idea that just didn't work, but it's the type of thing the company just can't do in the social media era. 

Unfortunately, this is one of those things that diminishes Reigns' strong title run as a heel too. When folks reminisce on it, they'll probably point to this as an exception. And in Balor's case, it's another example of WWE making it really hard to get invested in certain Superstars. The moment, not storytelling, was once again the priority. And the moment flat-out stunk, which hurts both performers and fans.