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TJR: WWE Raw Live Event Ringside Review for 08/06/17 in London, Ontario

By John Canton • Published 7th August 2017
TJR Wrestling

I attended the WWE Raw live event here in my hometown of London, Ontario on Sunday, August 6 as part of the WWE SummerSlam “Heatwave” Tour. It was a show that featured most of the big names on the Raw roster with about 6,000 people in attendance if I had to take a guess. It was the usual crowd for a London live event in our 10,000 seat arena. It started at 7pm and ended around 9:20pm.

The biggest names missing from the card (aside from Universal Champion Brock Lesnar, of course) were the Hardy Boyz. They were advertised on WWE.com, but when I read they weren’t at the live events on Friday and Saturday I figured they wouldn’t be here. Some wrestlers get weekends off in WWE because it’ such a big roster the company can afford to do it.

Here’s the shot from our seats at ringside from about ten minutes before the show.

I’ll include some tweets I posted during the show as well.

Raw Tag Team Championships: Sheamus & Cesaro vs. The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder)

Sheamus and Cesaro worked as the faces. Each team competed in a hugfest early in the match to see who could hug better. It was funny before the match because we asked Sheamus “who do we cheer for?” and he laughed, then said “That’s the question.” Good heel tactics by The Revival throughout the match. I yelled “Forever The Revival” at them because that’s something they tweet about all the time and there’s a “F**k The Revival” thing on social media too (look it up). As heels worked on Cesaro, some fans chanted “we want Sheamus” while others said “no we don’t” so that was pretty funny. Sheamus got the hot tag, cleaned house on the heels and hit a Brogue Kick for the win.

Jason Jordan defeated Elias

Elias did his song routine in the ring to start the match. Good heat for him as he trashed the city like he usually does. Jordan got a mild reaction. I give Jordan credit because he worked hard to fire up the crowd to support him. It wasn’t huge, but he played to the fans well. Sadly, the “Jason Angle” chant didn’t pick up. Jordan won after lowering the straps (like Kurt Angle), hitting a shoulder tackle and tossing Jordan into the air leading to the neckbreaker pin.

Raw Women’s Championship: Alexa Bliss defeated Nia Jax and Sasha Banks by pinning Banks

This was going to be a tag match with Bayley and Banks together, but Bayley’s out with the shoulder injury. The other Raw women were not on the tour. Banks gave her merch to some kids at ringside, which is pretty cool. This was a quick match that went about five minutes. Maybe seven minutes. I didn’t time it, but it felt rushed. Jax was dominant for most of it, Bliss spent time on the floor and Banks got the advantage. Banks had Jax in a submission, so Bliss went into the ring, did the dreaded rollup on Banks and got the win.

Big Cass beat up Enzo Amore

Enzo did a promo. The crowd loved his catchphrases. He talked about Big Cass, so Cass walked out in his ring gear. It was not a match. They had a brief altercation ending with a Big Cass boot to the face. Cass said “and you can’t teach that.” Then he left.

There were a bunch of fans around us wondering why it was just an angle instead of a match. I’m not sure other than WWE simply wanting to put them on the show without doing a competitive match between them.

Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose defeated Luke Gallows & Anderson

Rollins entered first to a really nice reaction. Gallows and Anderson were next. It looked like a handicap match, but of course Ambrose entered to team with Rollins. G&A were right above us, so I got to interact with them a bit saying stuff like “nerds,” “good brothers” and “that was too sweet” when they would do moves. The heels worked on Rollins for most of the match, Ambrose got the hot tag, they cleaned house, Rollins did a suicide dive and Ambrose hit the Dirty Deeds to win for his team.

After the match, Rollins and Ambrose shook hands with fans at ringside. They went all around the ring too. They really did a good job of interacting with the crowd.

There was a 15 minute intermission. They had a countdown clock with a minute left to let people know when the break was done.

Cruiserweight Championship: Neville defeated Akira Tozawa

No sign of Titus O’Neil with Tozawa. Simple match without much in the way of aerial moves. Neville mocked the shrieking of Tozawa, which was pretty funny. The crowd wasn’t into it much. Tozawa sold the shoulder injury well. Neville won with the Rings of Saturn submission.

Finn Balor defeated Bray Wyatt by disqualification

Funny moment early on as both guys were doing crotch chops. Wyatt did them a few more times and would look at the crowd while shrugging his shoulders. He was just having fun with it. The crowd was really into the match. Balor made the big comeback and it looked like he might win, but Wyatt attacked him in the ribs with a chair leading to the disqualification.

Post match, Balor went up top and hit the Coup de Gras. I’m not sure why they did the DQ finish instead of the clean win for Balor, but that’s fine because it was the same end result that you would expect with the face Balor standing tall.

Roman Reigns defeated Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman

It may look familiar because it was the same main event as Raw. There were a lot of Reigns haters in the crowd, but I’m not one of them. He continues to improve and does a good job of interacting with the kids at ringside. Strowman got a nice ovation with some boos. Joe was intense as usual.

The funniest part of the match was when a heckling fan a few rows behind me was chanting “Roman Sucks” repeatedly. Reigns looked right at him and goes: “You’re the one that paid to see me, bitch.” We laughed. Well played by Roman.

Near the end of the match, Dr. Amann went down to the ring (he was in the back all night) and checked on Joe at ringside. It looked like he was looking at Joe’s finger, so it may have been something like a jammed finger. They must have popped it back in because Joe was back in the ring moments later looking fine. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, but Joe may tape up his fingers on Raw tonight.

The finish was the same thing they did on Raw with Reigns hitting Strowman with the steel steps (after Strowman brought them in the ring), which knocked Strowman out of the ring and then Reigns hit a Spear on Joe to get the win.

Final Thoughts

It was a pretty good show. Not the best house show I’ve ever been to and certainly not the worst. Everybody worked hard and the crowd had fun. That’s what matters.

I really enjoy being that close to the action to be able to appreciate how hard the talent works to put on an entertaining show for us. It’s also cool to see the wrestlers interact with the guys because I can remember being 11 years old at a live event when The Undertaker stared right at me and legitimately scared me. It was the coolest thing to me at the time, so I know what it means to be able to interact like that.

As mentioned earlier, the show had a run time of about 2 hours, 20 minutes. It felt a little short because I can remember other house shows running around 2 hours, 45 minutes. It’s about a two hour drive to Toronto, so ending it early makes sense since the talent wanted to hit the road to get there at a reasonable time.

That’s all for now. I’m heading to Toronto about two hours away for both Raw and Smackdown. Have a great week.