6/26 WWE Smackdown HOLT Report: On-site details on what happened off-camera, how crowd reacted to no-shows, dark matches, biggest pops, more

WWE SMACKDOWN HOLT REPORT
JUNE 26, 2018
ONTARIO, CALIF.
REPORT BY MIKE B. & COHEN, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENTS

If you attend a live event, please sent results to pwtorch@pwtorch.com

DARK MATCH

(1) Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson beat The Bar when Anderson pinned Cesaro. That got the crowd hyped up.

OTHER NOTES

-The arena, which is small and holds roughly 4,000, was 95 percent full among available seats. The top was tarped off, though. There wasn’t much walk-up this time.

-I paid $104 after fees per ticket and it’s the only time in my entire life I didn’t feel it was worth it for the event I witnessed. Part of the problem is Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura didn’t take place, which was out of WWE’s control. It killed the crowd when Nakamura didn’t come out. They didn’t tell the crowd why Eric Young came out instead like they told the TV audience.

-During that very long break between Jeff Hardy’s ring entrance and going back to him in the ring, he stretched for five minutes and waved at fans who snapped pictures of him.

-It hurt the show that A.J. Styles wasn’t there and Andrade Cien Almas just appeared on the big screen. The local arena sent out an email advertising Styles in the days leading up to the event even though WWE knew he was overseas promoting the Australian stadium show.

-Biggest pops were for Kane, then Becky Lynch and Daniel Bryan, followed by New Day. The Club and The Bar were also very over, but that could have been because they were in the first match. Paige didn’t get much of a pop. James Ellsworth got the most boos.

-They hyped Samoa Joe & The Miz vs. Big E & Kofi Kingston in a dark match. We left before that. They hyped that throughout the show to keep fans in their seats for 205 Live. When 205 Live started, a lot of people left, so the staff was moving fans to better seats opposite the hard camera.

-The crowd wasn’t sure what to do with Rusev. They wanted to cheer him because it was fun, but he wasn’t necessarily over beyond that.

-Leo Rush, who debuted on 205 Live, can really move. He is fast.

-I didn’t see nearly as much Bullet Club merchandise on fans as last time. There was a ton of Styles merchandise being moved, which underlines how disappointed fans were he was pulled from the show to do publicity for another show even though the arena website advertised him.

If you attend a live event, please sent results to pwtorch@pwtorch.com

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