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WWE RAW HOLT REPORT
JUNE 25, 2018
SAN DIEGO, CALIF.
REPORT BY TYLER KIRGISS, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT
MAIN EVENT TAPING
(1) Bobby Roode & Fashion Police beat Curt Hawkins & Ascension when Roode pinned Hawkins. This was a really good warm-up match. Roode about to do his Glorious routine, but Fandango slid under his legs and handed his police hat, then Roode put the hat on. The fans loved that. Then he did the Glorious bit with the police hat on.
(2) Chad Gable beat Mike Kannellis. Gable got a huge reaction, which was awesome. I had never seen Kannellis live, but he did some good heel work. When Gable in the turnbuckles, and then Kannellis ran up and did the standard splash in the corner, but rather than bouncing off, he stayed on him and then played to the crowd. He got some good heel heat for that.
OTHER NOTES…
-There weren’t John Cena t-shirts. All the kids were in “Burn It Down” Seth Rollins t-shirts.
-Apart from WrestleMania, that was the most loud on-their-feet crowd I’ve ever seen for any Raw or Smackdown I’ve been to for the Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins match. I used to live in Chicago and saw a lot of events there.
-After Raw went off the air, Jinder Mahal’s music hit. Roman Reigns and Rollins turned to look at the ramp, but Jinder and the Singh Brothers ran out and jumped in and attacked them. Reigns and Seth took out Jinder and the Singh Brothers. Fans chanted for tables. Seth said he didn’t want to break their hearts, but there are no tables. Then everyone started chanting for Dean Ambrose. Seth said he was there in spirit. They gave Samir a Shield version of the powerbomb. Everybody stayed around for that and it was a big crowd pop when that happened. And that was the end of the show. No dark match.
-The fans were 50/50 at best for Reigns otherwise, but when he came to save Seth, it was 90 percent cheers.
More notes from PWTorch correspondent Mulch…
-Bailey’s “heel” turn was the most over moment of the night by a huge margin. There was also a notable “You got over” chant at Bayley during the beat-down around the time of the tables chant. I marked out like crazy, not only because Bayley was way over tonight, putting the rest of the show kinda to shame (Rollins not included), but because it was TOTALLY OBVIOUS that the turn angle back fired. Bayley was supposed to end up heel tonight and the mostly benign southern California crowd (NOT the “bizarro world” crowds that the announcers mention when the crowd destroys the story like on the East Coast and Chicago) decidedly made her the hero of the entire show. The biggest pop of the night was when Bayley snapped and attacked Sasha. It felt like an epic booking failure in a “safe town.” I think Bayley broke through in some way because the crowd just went bonkers for her, but not likely in the way wwe wanted/expected.
AND CHECK OUT THIS DETAILED RAW REPORT: HEYDORN’S WWE RAW REPORT 6/25: Alt Perspective coverage of the live show including Rollins vs. Ziggler for the IC Title, and more
Definitely wasn’t a Bayley heel turn and I don’t believe it was intended to be a heel turn. It pretty much cemented one for Sasha however.