By Nathan Spurling
WWE SUMMERSLAM HEAT WAVE TOUR RESULTS
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2015
A near full house for the start of the 3 night Australian tour, with a few scattered empty seats here and there. A good show that went nearly 3 hours long and had strong heat for most of the evening.
JoJo opened the show offering refunds for the next 20 minutes due to John Cena not being there because of his broken nose
A HHH video played on the Mini TitanTron welcoming us to the show and asking if ‘We were ready”.. He then introduced Shawn Michaels as the General Manager to a big pop.
HBK came out, announced the main event as a Brisbane Street Fight for the WWE World Heavyweight Title between champion Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose
1. Finn Balor beat Adrian Neville to retain the NXT Title
A real fun opener and good way to start the show. Neville replaced the originally advertised Bo Dallas and it was defintely a step up for fans.
Neville was the slight crowd favorite.. match went about 11 minutes before Neville missed the Red Arrow, Balor hit the running dropkick into the corner and then the double foot stomp off the top to win. Both men shook hands at the end.
2. Fandango pinned Adam Rose
Not a bad comedy match.. Rose had no heat coming out but worked the crowd well during the match. Fandango is quite athletic and put on a good show and won with a powerbomb.
3. Luke Harper beat R-Truth
Truth rapped his way to the ring and got a real kick out of the crowd continually chatting ‘Whoop, there it is’ after.
Harper is a mountain of a man in person.. kept flexing during the match which I must admit is a first I’ve seen from him. He won with the stiff clothesline from hell.
4. Randy Orton beat King Barrett
Barrett got great heat for the first big promo of the night talking about how English sport is better than Australian sport and said with the Queen back home we should all bow to the King of the Ring.
A decent match which really, to me, showed how much Barrett is underutilised as a talent. He’s in tremendous shape, looked great, and worked the crowd well.
Orton is a total pro, but worked quite a soft style, which I was surprised to see, where he wasn’t laying in the shots.
He won with the RKO out of nowhere and then spent a good 5 minutes post match shaking hands and taking photos with fans which was good.
INTERMISSION
Bo Dallas cut off JoJo for his usual promo on how we only need to Bolieve in him and we can be better.
No surprise Rock appearance, but out came HBK who laid him out with some Sweet Chin Music for a nice pop. Bo sold it like he was dead.
5. Emma and Natalya beat the Bella Twins
Nice home town pop for Emma who had new Australian flag themed gear.
Match saw the Bellas work on Natalya to get the heat, before hot tagging Emma in who scored the winning pinfall on Brie.
They then played the Conor Michalek video and this was an amazing experience. The crowd went absolutely silent watching the emotional video and then gave a nice round of applause and ‘Conor’ chant once it finished. As a father that story/video still gets me every time I see it on WWE programming.
6. Cesaro beat Kevin Owens.
A very nice pop for Owens and then an even bigger one for Cesaro.
They went nearly 20 minutes and built slowly into a nice match. A good prelude to what they’ll do at SummerSlam no doubt.
The match was all worked around Cesaro trying to get the Swing, which he eventually did, and then put the SharpShooter on Owens who immediately tapped. Quick finish that came out of nowhere.
7. Seth Rollins beat Dean Ambrose to retain the WWE Title in a Brisbane Street Fight.
They went 25 minutes and Rollins was easily the star of the night with good heat.. presence and he really carries himself as a champion.
He refused to use any outside weapons early, grabbed the mike to cut a promo on how we should all respect him, then whacked Ambrose 3 times in the head with the mike.
Dean brought out the kendo stick and used it on Seth, while there were the usual chair shots to the back.
First table spot saw Rollins set one up in the corner and nail the running powerbomb on Ambrose through it.
Ambrose then brought out some woodwork and lay Rollins on it, before nailing the Macho Man elbow drop.
Both kicked out of the table spots, before Rollins threw powder in Ambroses’ eyes for the win.
While the show lacked in star power (no Cena and Sheamus was advertised but didn’t appear) compared to prior visits it was still a good night, the crew worked well and the crowd seemed happy. All you can ask for really.
Nathan Spurling