{"id":45030,"date":"2017-07-17T00:28:19","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T05:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=45030"},"modified":"2017-07-17T00:28:19","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T05:28:19","slug":"716-wwe-raw-lexington-ky-cena-vs-bray-headlines-hardys-vs-cesaro-sheamus-samson-heel-balor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/07\/17\/716-wwe-raw-lexington-ky-cena-vs-bray-headlines-hardys-vs-cesaro-sheamus-samson-heel-balor\/","title":{"rendered":"7\/16 WWE Raw in Lexington, Ky.: Cena vs. Bray headlines, Hardys vs. Cesaro &#038; Sheamus, Samson over as heel against Balor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3778241715\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h3>WWE LIVE EVENT &#8211; RAW BRAND<br \/>\nJULY 16, 2017<br \/>\nLEXINGTON, KY. AT RUPP ARENA<br \/>\nREPORT BY DAVID HORN, PWTORCH VIP MEMBER<\/h3>\n<p>They had the upper deck completely curtained off and only opened about three-fourths of the lower arena with this stage set up. I would guess around 6,000 people in the crowd with this set up the capacity would be around 9,000.\u00a0 I would guess 70 percent families. Lots of kids and lots of John Cena merchandise. I asked the people at the merchandise stand. They said Cena, Hardys, and A.J. Styles merchandise ruled the night.<\/p>\n<p>(1) Heath Slater &amp; Rhyno &amp; Apollo Crews defeated Luke Gallows &amp; Karl Anderson &amp; Curt Hawkins in 10:00. \u00a0 Gallows and Anderson controlled 60 percent of the match. Good action and I would say a good opener with Rhyno getting the pin on Hawkins after a spinebuster. Not much of a reaction. The crowd seemed to be most into Gallows and Anderson.<\/p>\n<p>(2)\u00a0Goldust beat\u00a0R-Truth at 1:50. This match was short with them chasing around the ring and then a quick roll-up by Goldust for the win. Virtually no response from the crowd. Of course the entrances were longer than the match. After the match was over,\u00a0 R-Truth did deliver a two minute promo that was good enough to get a bit of a reaction.<\/p>\n<p>(3)\u00a0Akira Tozawa beat\u00a0The Brian Kendrick at 8:36. This was a good back and forth match that definitely picked up steam with the crowd as it went on. Tozawa got the win with the diving senton. Little reaction when they came out, but they won the crowd over as the match progressed.<\/p>\n<p>(4)\u00a0Finn Balor beat\u00a0Elias Samson after the Coup de Grace at 9:39.\u00a0This started off with two minutes of Samson playing the guitar with a derogatory song about Lexington. After which Balor\u2019s music hit and he got a good response. This was a good back and forth match that the crowd was really into with several good false finishes. I was shocked the amount of offense they gave Samson before Balor\u2019s comeback. Balor pinned Samson at 9:39 . I would say Samson had the second\u00a0most heat of the night.<\/p>\n<p>(5)\u00a0Dean Ambrose &amp; Seth Rollins beat Bo Dallas &amp; Curtis Axel\u00a0at\u00a013:44.\u00a0This match shocked me as nearly the whole match was Seth Rollins taking a ton of punishment from Dallas and Axel to set up the hot tag for Ambrose who received one of the better reactions of the night. Rollins was then tagged back in and hit his running Knee and pinned Axel for the win. Ambrose probably got the third\u00a0best reaction of the night and it was far better than Rollins reaction which also shocked me.<\/p>\n<p>Intermission<\/p>\n<p>They announced they would be coming back to Lexington with Smackdown Live on Tuesday, Nov. 28\u00a0and tickets would be on sale at the box office after the show.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2779628181\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>(6)\u00a0Alexa Bliss &amp; Nia Jax beat Mickie James &amp; Dana Brooke at 7:42.\u00a0This was a standard women\u2019s tag team match with Mickie James pinning Alexa Bliss clean after a Mick Kick. Alexa and Mickie got good responses from the crowd throughout.<\/p>\n<p>(7)\u00a0Sheamus &amp; Cesaro beat The Hardys at 12&#8243;31. For me, this was the best match of the night. It was hard hitting back and forth action with the Hardys hitting all of their signature big spots. Jeff took the heat, then Matt got the hot tag and was caught with a quick roll up for the win. Of course, the crowd hated this finish which led to a lot of boos. I think Sheamus and Cesaro got the most heat of the night with the Hardys getting the second largest pop.<\/p>\n<p>(8)\u00a0John Cena beat\u00a0Bray Wyatt at 14:08.\u00a0Cena was super-over with this crowd and easily got the pop of the night. This was the standard Cena match. He started strong, then took the beat down, then had his Superman comeback with an AA and the pin. Bray carried his end of the match well and looked very comfortable working with Cena. This was a really good match which allowed the crowd to go home happy.<\/p>\n<p>FINAL THOUGHTS: Overall, I would say this was a very good live event. Most people there seemed happy with the show. With a big pop from the fans when they announce coming back for the Smackdown taping in November.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>If you attend a live event, please send us a report like the one above to pwtorch@pwtorch.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1942053690\"><div id=\"pwtor-3090229350\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE LIVE EVENT &#8211; RAW BRAND JULY 16, 2017 LEXINGTON, KY. AT RUPP ARENA REPORT BY DAVID HORN, PWTORCH VIP MEMBER They had the upper deck completely curtained off and only opened about three-fourths of <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/07\/17\/716-wwe-raw-lexington-ky-cena-vs-bray-headlines-hardys-vs-cesaro-sheamus-samson-heel-balor\/\" title=\"7\/16 WWE Raw in Lexington, Ky.: Cena vs. Bray headlines, Hardys vs. Cesaro &#038; Sheamus, Samson over as heel against Balor\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,9,10],"tags":[3418,75,3037,126,1639,116,1640,5520],"class_list":["post-45030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-results","category-results_houseshows","tag-akira-tozawa","tag-bray-wyatt","tag-elias-samson","tag-finn-balor","tag-goldust","tag-john-cena","tag-rtruth","tag-the-brian-kendrick"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2017\/03\/CenaJohnWK_3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45043,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45030\/revisions\/45043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}