11/11 WWE in Lyon, France: Rollins vs. Owens, New Day vs. Cesaro & Sheamus, Dana & Nia vs. Bayley & Alicia

WWE RAW LIVE EVENT
NOVEMBER 11, 2016
LYON, FRANCE
REPORT BY JULIEN MACRAT, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

Attendance: 4,000-5,000

(1) Big Cass (w/Enzo Amore) defeated Rusev. Lana comes out first to a loud reaction to introduce Rusev. She takes a few shots at the French audience to add some heat. Rusev enters the ring (he looks way smaller than on TV, but as large as you can imagine). Then comes Big Cass and Enzo Amore to a loud pop. Their entrance is way over with the WWE Universe. Nice exchange between these two. Some interaction on the outside with Lana and Enzo, and Lana gets sent to the back after slapping Enzo Amore on the apron in front of the referee. Enzo runs around the ring celebrating like a Money in the Bank winner. Hilarious. Big Cass wins with a big boot and a nice sound when it connects.

(2) Golden Truth & Neville & Darren Young defeated The Shining Stars & Bo Dallas & Titus O’Neil. Truth pumps up the crowd with his usual antics at the beginning of the match. Titus is really massive. Good tag team action, with the babyface team dominating the debate. The best moment of the match was Goldust giving Manhattan Drop to four adversaries and then catching the referee in the same position, but stopping before getting DQ’d with his partners yelling in the corner. The win comes with a shooting starpress from Neville. No red arrow, damn it.

(3) Braun Strowman defeated Big Show in a Bodyslam Challenge. Big Show comes second to a very nice reaction from the crowd. As you can imagine, nothing particular from the ring action. Time to send my wife to get some goodies from the merchandise stand. Strowman picks up the win after bodyslamming Big Show coming off the ropes just to make sure he can handle it. Big Show has done everything he could in wrestling, with maybe the record of the most heel/face turns. He seems healthy, but his size prevents him from anything surprising nowadays. He should be booked something along the lines of Lesnar or Taker, but there’s a lot of work to rebuild him.

(4) Charlotte defeated Sasha Banks in Women’s Title Match. Both competitors get great reactions from the crowd for their entrances. Very nice wrestling from both women. Very enjoyable. Charlotte is precise in the ring and has great timing. Charlotte wins, of course.

Intermission

(5) Sami Zayn defeated Chris Jericho. Chris Jericho wakes up the crowd from the intermission with his List. He says Lyon doesn’t deserve to be on the list. Zayn makes his entrance with good ol’ soccer chants continuing after his music. Jericho refuses to give his scarf to the referee. Zayn finally steals it from him and pretends to shoot it into the crowd. He then returns it to Y2J, who must try to get it back a la torero. At this time my wife asks me, “Didn’t Jericho fall too low? He is a former world champ. I prefer his old persona.” I explain to her the goal of a house show and the things they can’t do on TV… Anyway, nice action from the two, and Zayn picking up the win with his spin-out powerbomb. Good pop for the Walls of Jericho during the match.

(6) Bayley & Alicia Fox defeated Dana Brook & Nia Jax. We were granted the classic entrance of Bayley with the giant colorful characters. Classic tag team action with good efforts from both teams. Bayley picks up the win with her Bayley to Belly suplex on Dana. Nia Jax moves smoothly, considering her size.

(7) New Day defeated Cesaro & Sheamus. New Day comes out first with a big pop. Francesca is here too. Kofi plays with his unicorn to the point where it slides on his chin and he dances like a techno parade maniac during the music entrance of Cesaro. Hilarious. Sheamus and Cesaro play with the crowd before the match. While Sheamus gets booed, Cesaro raises his arms behind his back to get the crowd pop. Classic house show funplay with the crowd. Kofi is on the outside for the bout, still with his unicorn beard. We were treated to the giant swing for over 20 swings by Cesaro on Woods. New Day gets the win after miscommunication between Cesaro and Sheamus. Cesaro was about to hit his finisher when Sheamus tagged him in the back, but then got caught with a roll-up. Very enjoyable tag team action.

(8) Kevin Owens defeated Seth Rollins to retain the Universal Title in a street fight. Seth Rollins enters first to the best ovation of the night. The dude is over in our country. Curious to see what treatment Reigns would have had if here tonight. Kevin Owens took the mic during the match saying the crowd didn’t deserve “to get the tables” because we couldn’t spell it right, then took the mic a second time a few moments later and said instead we deserved that. He hit the ropes and hit a sleeper hold on Rollins who was sitting dazed on a chair in the center of the ring. It brought back memories of the Cactus Jack/Mick Foley way to wrestle while in ECW to stink the joint up for the audience. Great mannerism for Owens anyway. We got to see a great ending sequence: kendo stick hit by Owens from the outside on Rollins trying to get him back in the ring, Owens crawls back to the ring and gets caught with a knee to the face by Rollins, superkick by Owens, Enziguri by Rollins, and finally Owens getting the win and retaining the title after countering the pedigree with a kendo stick low blow. After the match, while on the corner second rope, Owens taunts the crowd more with the French Canadian language being better than the French trash coming out of our mouths. Rollins gets back on his feet after selling the low blow and gets Owens on his running powerbomb to cross the ring and crash him (safely) through the table inclined in the opposite corner. Rollins celebrates the defeat nonetheless and closes the show thanking the audience.

OTHER NOTES: Overall a very enjoyable show with nothing too risky except for the street fight. I was afraid of the lack of star power before the show, but was sent home happy with correct to good performances from everyone…  The show started at 6 p.m. and ended at 8:40 p.m… The merchandise stand was full in line as usual… I hadn’t had the occasion to see a WWE show live since 2011 and the retirement tour of Edge. Three babies later, here I am, and I was gladly surprised that the arena has a giant screen for the entrances on live shows now. Tweets from #WWELyon are shown on the big screen before the beginning of the show; nice addition too.

NOW CHECK OUT THE REPORT ON THIS RECENT WWE EVENT: 11/10 WWE Smackdown in Cardiff, Wales (3rd report): Rhyno & Slater vs. Breezango vs. Usos, Natalya & Carmella vs. Naomi & Nikki, Bliss vs. Lynch