The 2011 Extreme Rules was the third annual Extreme Rules professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on May 1, 2011, at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Florida. It was the first WWE PPV event to be held in Tampa since Survivor Series in 2000. This was the last Extreme Rules held under the first brand extension, which ended in August but was reinstated in July 2016. It was also the company's first PPV to be promoted under its shortened trade name of WWE, as following WrestleMania XXVII the previous month, the company ceased using its full name of World Wrestling Entertainment, although it is still the legal name of the company.

The concept of Extreme Rules is that the event features various hardcore-based matches. The event's card consisted of eight matches, seven of which were contested under a hardcore stipulation, and there was also one dark match that occurred before the live broadcast. The main event saw John Cena defeat defending champion The Miz and John Morrison in a Triple Threat Steel Cage match to win Raw's WWE Championship. In the other main promoted matches, Christian defeated Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match to win SmackDown's vacant World Heavyweight Championship, Kofi Kingston defeated Sheamus in a tables match to win SmackDown's United States Championship, and in the opening bout, Randy Orton defeated CM Punk in a Last Man Standing match. This was also the second Extreme Rules event to not feature the titular Extreme Rules match after the inaugural 2009 event. It was also notable for the WWE debut of Kharma, formerly known as Awesome Kong in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.

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