WWE Great Balls of Fire | |||
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Promotion | WWE | ||
Brand(s) | Raw | ||
Date | July 9, 2017 | ||
City | Dallas, Texas | ||
Venue | American Airlines Center | ||
Attendance | 16,559[1] | ||
WWE Network event chronology | |||
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WWE Great Balls of Fire was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw brand division. The event took place on July 9, 2017, at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. The event's title referenced Jerry Lee Lewis' song of the same name, which was used as the event's theme song. It was a one-off event by WWE, as following WrestleMania 34 the following year, brand-exclusive PPVs were discontinued, resulting in WWE reducing the amount of yearly PPVs produced.
Nine matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, Brock Lesnar defeated Samoa Joe to retain the Universal Championship. In other prominent matches, Braun Strowman defeated Roman Reigns in an ambulance match, Cesaro and Sheamus retained the Raw Tag Team Championship against The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy) in a 30-minute Iron Man match, and in the opening bout, Bray Wyatt defeated Seth Rollins.
This date's event was originally announced to revive the Bad Blood PPV and be held at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut, which would have been the first Bad Blood since 2004 and the fourth Bad Blood event overall. However, these plans were scrapped in favor of Great Balls of Fire. Bad Blood would instead later return in 2024, 20 years after the last Bad Blood.