Extreme Rules (2011)

Extreme Rules (2011)
Promotional poster featuring John Cena
Theme song(s)	"Justice" by Rev Theory
Information
Promotion	WWE
Brand(s)	Raw SmackDown
Sponsor(s)	Paper Jamz
Date	May 1, 2011
Attendance	10,000
Venue	St. Pete Times Forum
City	Tampa, Florida
Pay-per-view chronology
WrestleMania XXVII Extreme Rules (2011) Over the Limit (2011)
Extreme Rules chronology
Extreme Rules (2010) Extreme Rules (2011) Extreme Rules (2012)

Extreme Rules was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE, which took place on May 1, 2011 at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Florida. It was the third Extreme Rules event. This was also the first WWE pay-per-view event to be held in Tampa since Survivor Series in 2000.

The event received 209,000 pay-per-view buys, up from last year's event of 182,000 buys.

The professional wrestling matches at Extreme Rules inolved professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, WWE. Storylines between the characters were produced on WWE's weekly television shows Raw and SmackDown with the Raw and SmackDown brands—storyline divisions in which WWE assigned its employees to different programs.

Edge was originally scheduled to defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match. However, Edge retired on the April 11, 2011 episode of Raw due to a cervical spinal stenosis stemming from his neck injury. The match was scrappd and the championhip vacated on the April 15th episode of Smackdown. Later, Edge's best friend in both storyline and real life, Christian, won a 20-man battle royal to face Alberto in the ladder match for the title. In the interim, Del Rio was drafted to Raw in the 2011 WWE Draft.