WWE Great Balls of Fire 2017: Full rundown and why you should care

RAW’s Great Balls of Fire is here, thanks to Jerry Lee Lewis deciding not to sue WWE so long as they used his song of the same name as the theme for the new July pay-per-view. And while the name might be goofy as heck, the card is loaded. There are ways it could all go wrong, of course — this is wrestling we’re talking about — but if this show goes off like it could, Great Balls of Fire might be one of the better pay-per-views of the year.

The show begins at 7:30 p.m. ET on the WWE Network with a kickoff that will include analysis as well as Cruiserweight Champion Neville defending his title against Akira Tozawa. That match should be better than its placement suggests, so if you don’t want to wait until 8 to see wrasslin or just want to see a lot of hard suplexes, tune in to Great Balls of Fire early.

As for the rest of the show...

What am I looking at here? Enzo Amore is the little dude with the strange haircut and the boundless energy. That energy and the checks his mouth writes that his fists can’t cash are what got him here, in a match against his former best friend Big Cass. Cass turned on Enzo as the little guy was holding him back, and then made it clear their partnership was over by faking Enzo out and turning on him once more.

Why you should care: WWE split up one of its most popular tag teams, in large part due to Cass’ ceiling as a main eventer. This shouldn’t be a Shawn Michaels/Marty Jannetty situation, though, as Cass is great but no HBK, and Enzo should have a lengthy WWE career ahead of him even without the big man backing him up — look at how he’s handled the betrayal of his buddy, doing some growing up and realizing he is, in part, at fault for this dissolution. Enzo has layers.

What will be fascinating is how this all plays out: Is Cass just going to murk his former friend and force Enzo to find a representative to fight on his behalf? Will Enzo surprise Cass by putting on the fight of his life and stealing a victory? Where does Enzo go once this is all over? We won’t get all of these answers on Sunday, but Sunday is where we’ll start to see them.

What am I looking at here? Miz took the title from Dean Ambrose at Extreme Rules because Ambrose was a dummy who let himself get distracted with mind games. Now, in order to keep said title, Miz has enlisted a couple of buddies who co-starred in The Marine 5 with him. Not like, random actors or stunt doubles or something — this isn’t Roddy Piper’s WCW run, you know — but wrestlers Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas.

Ambrose is outnumbered, easily distracted, and probably going to lose so he can move on to something else. Right?

Why you should care: Miz is always good television, even when WWE is forcing him to host segments with LaVar Ball and his sons and the wacky version of Dean Ambrose, and he managed to form a stable around himself and his title at a time when his wife, Maryse, doesn’t seem too keen on helping him. He and Ambrose can put on an entertaining match, as they did at Extreme Rules, and as this could be the one that ends the feud, it’s going to be worth watching.

What am I looking at here? That’s the question, isn’t it? Sheamus and Cesaro have lost basically every interaction with the Hardy Boyz, except for when they won the RAW Tag Team titles on a technicality in a cage match at Extreme Rules. Now we get an Iron Man match between the two teams, where whichever side picks up the most victories in 30 minutes is the winner. Sheamus and Cesaro will need to pick up more W’s in 30 minutes than they have in 30 days against the Hardyz in order to retain the tag titles.

Why you should care: Well, Sheamus and Cesaro are going to need to pick up more Ws in 30 minutes than they have in 30 days against the Hardyz in order to retain the tag titles, and seeing how they do that should be worth the price of admission. The cage match was not good for a number of reasons, but Sheamus and Cesaro are wonderful, intimidating baddies, and seeing them methodically beat down the Hardyz for 30 minutes to finally achieve a victory that puts an end to this feud is a reason to care about this showdown.

The Hardyz could win the titles back, sure, but come on. It’s time for them to move on to something else, too, whether it’s each other or something in a non-fratricide vein.

What am I looking at here? Man, I don’t know. I’m checked out on Bray Wyatt. Sorry, Seth. I still love you.

Why you should care: Maybe the match will be good and Rollins will move on to something else for SummerSlam and we won’t have these two facing off again? idk.

Here’s Brandon Stroud perfectly and succinctly explaining why it’s hard to care about this:

What am I looking at here? Sasha Banks won a Gauntlet Match for the No. 1 contendership, so now she’s set to take on Alexa Bliss at the first major pay-per-view since then. Bliss has held the belt since winning it from Bayley following the Superstar Shakeup. Normally, Alexa Bliss is dealing with being the smaller performer in a match, and tends to focus on how she can outsmart her larger opponent, but Sasha is the next-smallest wrestler on the RAW women’s roster.

Why you should care: Alexa and Sasha are both wonderful performers, albeit for different reasons, and we didn’t get to this feud through some dumb setup: that Gauntlet Match was legit, putting over both Nia Jax and Sasha Banks in the process, and now we’ve got a fresh matchup for the RAW Women’s title that doesn’t involve Bayley, who needs to step aside from the main event for a bit while she finds herself.

Really the only downside to this is that it’s once again a RAW pay-per-view with just the one women’s match, but that doesn’t take away from this event. Well, besides putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on this one fight both in terms of quality and how much time it gets, but RAW did that to themselves.

What am I looking at here? Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns has been the feud of the year on RAW, and now that Strowman is healthy once again, it’s back on. The two were probably going to have this Ambulance Match at Extreme Rules, but so long as they’re having it, we’re in for a treat.

Ambulance Matches can be stupid, for sure, but everything these two have done together — matches, backstage segments, brawls — has been wonderful. So, let’s give them a chance here.

Why you should care: Hmm idk maybe because

and also

It barely matters who wins, though we’ll get pretty different outcomes depending on who does. Let’s enjoy the match in the moment before we get to discussing what could come of it.

What am I looking at here? Brock Lesnar hasn’t wrestled since WrestleMania 33, when he defeated Goldberg to win the Universal title. RAW’s top title hasn’t been defended since, but now Samoa Joe is here to try to wrest it from Brock. Besides Goldberg, we usually see that no one is a threat to Lesnar — even Undertaker only defeated Brock once during their feud, and that wasn’t a clean finish.

Joe, though, has continually shown that he’s capable of not only hurting Lesnar, but taking him down. Will he be able to do that in the match itself? Or will Joe’s obsession with proving he can down Brock take him out of his game long enough for Lesnar to recover and successfully defend his title?

Why you should care: It’s two of the baddest dudes in wrestling trying to destroy each other, and it’s likely the match that makes Samoa Joe a main event mainstay in WWE whether he wins or not. What’s not to love?