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WWE Live: House Show
Phoenix, Arizona at Talking Stick Resort Arena
October 15, 2016
Report by Brian Alston, 25 Year PWTorch VIP Subscriber
Attendance: Estimate 5,000. Upper bowl was completely empty. Many empty seats. I had 4 rows of 21 seats to myself.
Announcer Greg Hamilton was the MC. He played a game of trivia with a young girl. She won a third edition WWE Encyclopedia.
Showed a video: Top 10 Mid Air finishers. Number 1: Orton RKO’s Evan Bourne.
(1) Intercontinental champ Dolph Ziggler pinned Tyler Breeze using a superkick. Charles Robinson was the Referee. Dolph was very over. Both worked very hard including several series of back and forth near falls. Great opener.
(2) Heath Slater & The Hype Bros beat The Ascension & Aiden English. Simon Gotch stayed at ringside. Slater tried to throw his shirt into the crowd but it got stuck In the overhead light rack. Everyone laughed. Mojo Rawley has a ton of energy. Slater won with an implant DDT on English.
(3) Apollo Crews pinned Curt Hawkins in a short match.Nice reception for Crews.Hawkins was a total heel. Afterwards, Hawkins said he wasn’t going to leave. Cue fire and brimstone…
(4) Kane squashed Curt Hawkins in 10 seconds with a choke slam. Referee Robinson helped Hawkins to the back.
(5) Baron Corbin beat Jack Swagger. Swagger greeted a lot of the ringside fans. Good action. Swagger applied the ankle lock twice. Corbin stacked up Swagger for the pin.
(6) Randy Orton used an RKO to pin Bray Wyatt. The arena was buzzing with Bray’s fireflies. Randy got a great pop. After Bray threw Randy out of the ring, Bray flexed ala Hulk Hogan. Randy escaped an attempted Sister Abigail and hit the RKO.
Intermission
(7) Nikki Bella & Naomi & Emma beat Natalya & Alexa Bliss & Carmela. Nikki is from nearby Scottsdale and is extremely popular. Emma came out as her old sunglasses and gloves persona, no hint of Emmalina. Naomi sold most of the match. Audience erupted when Nikki got the hot tag. Nikki pinned Carmela.
(8) America Alpha beat The Usos. For the most part, the crowd was silent. Gable sold. The Usos were aggressive. There wasn’t a big pop when Jordan git the hot tag or when he pulled down his shoulder straps.
(9) A.J. Styles retained his WWE World Championship against Dean Ambrose and John Cena. Each got a great reception. Ambrose and Cena took turns playing ‘anything you can do, I can do better’ beating on Styles. Styles played arrogant champ well. Ambrose was on the outside ‘hurt’ most of the match. Very good spots. Styles hit Ambrose with a chair. When the ref took it, Styles used a low blow to pin Cena. Afterwards Ambrose and Cena used their finishing maneuvers on Styles.
Best sign that I saw: neon green sign with pictures of the Wyatt Family. Included a full sheep mask that lighted up.
All types of merchandise. Saw a guy buying Becky Lynch light up glasses. I fist-bumped 2 boys wearing lucha masks and World Championship belts.
Talked with a family including 2 boys wearing Lucha masks and WWE tag team belts. They were disappointed that Kalisto wasn’t here. This was the only mistake WWE made today: Phoenix has a huge Latino market and they should’ve had one Luchador wrestling.
I Tweeted a picture using #WWEPhoenix and it was displayed on the arena’s jumbo tron. The staff contacted and gave me Seth Rollins and Wyatt Family shirts and a Monday Night War DVD.
If you attend a live event, you are invited – no, encouraged! – to send us a report. Email it to pwtorch@gmail.com. Thanks!
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