WWE Great Balls of Fire 2017: Results and observations from the show

As expected, WWE's inaugural Great Balls of Fire pay-per-view delivered where it had to.

The event's top two matches were quite memorable and the undercard felt like more than just Raw bouts taking place on a Sunday night.

The name of the event is and always will be awful, but I'll actually have positive feelings when looking back at Great Balls of Fire, as it was one of WWE's best pay-per-view outings of 2017.

Before I dig into my full analysis, here are the full results from the American Airlines Center in Dallas:

- Kickoff match – WWE Cruiserweight championship – Neville def. Akira Tozawa

- Bray Wyatt def. Seth Rollins

- Big Cass def. Enzo Amore

- WWE Raw Tag Team championship (30-minute Ironman match) – Sheamus & Cesaro vs. The Hardy Boyz

- WWE Raw Women's championship – Sasha Banks def. Alexa Bliss via count-out

- WWE Intercontinental championship – The Miz def. Dean Ambrose

- Ambulance match – Braun Strowman def. Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman

- Heath Slater def. Curt Hawkins

- WWE Universal championship – Brock Lesnar def. Samoa Joe

Lesnar narrowly fends off Joe

It wasn't nearly the 60-minute epic like Kazuchika Okada had Kenny Omega had for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, but Lesnar's successful title defense against Joe was very fun while it lasted.

Joe wasted little time in attacking Lesnar, as he jumped on the champion while Paul Heyman was introducing his client to the audience.

Joe's early barrage of offense came to a crescendo when he slammed Lesnar through one of the announce tables at ringside.

Since the match had not officially started, the referee asked the suddenly battered Lesnar if he wanted to go through with the match. Lesnar agreed to go through with it and dragged himself back into the ring to start the festivities.

Joe was on the offensive the majority of the match, but Lesnar was able to get in short yet devastating bursts of offense, which consisted mostly of German suplexes.

When Joe wasn't landing big jabs on Lesnar, he was trying to lock in the coquina clutch. Joe managed to get his arm around Lesnar's neck, but was never able to fully lock it in by falling onto his back and wrapping his legs around the champion.

In doing so, it actually protected Joe's chokehold, as the fans can now imagine he would have actually beaten Lesnar if he had fully locked in the hold.

But the reason why Joe was not able to fully cinch in the coquina clutch was because Lesnar countered it on multiple occasions, including in the closing moments of the match when Joe seemingly had Lesnar on the brink, but the champion was able to hoist Joe up for the F5, execute it and pin the challenger to pick up a hard-fought victory.

Lesnar didn't stand in the ring and gloat over his title defense. Instead, he left the ring as soon as was able to almost as if to show that he was lucky to escape with his title.

To his credit, Joe did not sell the F5 for very long, as he glared at Lesnar as the show went off the air.

Again, the match wasn't very long, but I think it accomplished what it needed to accomplish. One of the main goals of the match was to improve Joe's stock even in defeat.

I believe that happened. Joe may have lost in clean fashion, but got in more offense anyone has gotten in on Lesnar in a long time. The fact that Joe was able to make Lesnar look truly vulnerable is a notch in Joe's belt because few others get to do that.

Joe also dominated the majority of the match and only lost because he was caught with an F5 out of nowhere.

This is where I get to fans on social media and their gripes about this match, which mostly surrounded the finish. I saw a lot of people say that the finish felt rushed and maybe it was a little bit because WWE had to get off the air at a certain point, but I don't think it hurt the match one bit.

I'm all for climactic finishes, but in this case, I understood not having one. Joe was so focused on choking Lesnar out that he got caught slipping, and Lesnar was able to hit him with an F5 and steal one. I'm okay with that.

I saw some people complain about the fact Joe lost to only one F5, as if people should be kicking out of the F5 left and right.

Lesnar is booked as the dominant force in WWE, which means his finish should defeat everyone. He shouldn't have to hit the F5 three or four times to beat anyone. It should take only one to beat pretty much everyone on the roster, including Joe.

I understand that people have kicked out of the F5 in the past, but those were under different circumstances and it has not happened in a long time.

Joe falling to one F5 does not make him look weak and if anyone thinks that I seriously question what you deem to be weak or strong. One F5 does not erase all of the things Joe got to do before that, which was especially memorable considering very few people get their hands on Joe in that capacity.

By the way, someone hitting their finisher should be the actual finish of the match. The practice of kicking out of finishers is far overdone not just in WWE but in wrestling in general. A finisher should be just that, the finish.

I also saw people complain about the match length, as if Lesnar gets paid by the hour all of a sudden. Lesnar's matches may be short, but they are pretty darn exciting while they last. A prime example was his match against Goldberg at WrestleMania.

At the end of the day, the match was a lot of fun and I think everyone involved came away looking better as a result.

Reigns tried to kill Strowman

While the main event was all good and fun, we almost witnessed vehicular manslaughter in the second-biggest match on the card, which was the Ambulance match between Reigns and Strowman.

Before I get to the attempted murder, let me get into the match itself, which was very good.

As expected, Reigns and Strowman beat the daylights out of each other. At one point, Reigns shoved Strowman through one of the LED boards on the stage. Reigns thought he finally vanquished his foe, but Strowman crawled out of the rubble like a horror movie villain and continued to fight.

Reigns had Strowman on the ropes and was ready to knock him into the ambulance with a spear, but Strowman stepped out of the way at the last second, which sent Reigns flying into the ambulance as if he was sliding into someone's direct messages.

Strowman quickly shut the doors to win the match, but that was only the beginning. The loss enraged Reigns and he quickly took his anger out on Strowman. Reigns knocked Strowman into the back of the ambulance, shoved the driver out of the driver's seat and drove off.

Once Reigns was backstage, he stopped the ambulance and contemplated his next move. Suddenly, a look came over Reigns' face that said he was about to do something with evil intent.

Reigns eventually slammed the ambulance in reverse and backed it into a semi truck.

Raw general manager Kurt Angle ran to the scene and wondered what in the world Reigns had done. While that was going on, Hawkins and Slater had a match for some reason. WWE barely paid any attention to this match, as it had a split screen up of all of the commotion going on backstage.

WWE eventually forgot all about the match and cut backstage exclusively. The finish to the Slater-Hawkins match didn't even air on television.

While Slater was defeating Hawkins, the fire department was attempting to get Strowman out of the ambulance with the Jaws of Life. This was a crazy scene.

The firefighters were eventually able to pry open the door and help Strowman out, but he refused their help. Instead, the now bloody Strowman staggered to his feet and stumbled away under his own power.

Like I said earlier, this was a crazy scene. Firstly, you have Reigns doing the very un-babyface act of trying to murder Strowman. I mean, that had to have been vehicular manslaughter or something.

How is Reigns a babyface after that? I know Steve Austin tried to murder Triple H at Survivor Series one year, but that was Austin. He could have given Jesus Christ a stunner back then and the fans would still have given him a "Hell yeah!"

Austin could do no wrong, but Reigns is not nearly as beloved as Austin was and probably never will be. I think WWE could make the interesting plot twist of Reigns going off the deep end just to destroy Strowman.

On the flip side, how can anyone boo Strowman after that? He looked like a total badass crawling and eventually walking away from that wreckage all battered and bloody.

It wasn't quite as artistically pleasing, but it reminded me of Austin refusing to tap out to Bret Hart's sharpshooter at WrestleMania 13. The visual of blood trickling down Austin's face almost mirrored the blood staining Strowman's face and arm.

Double turns don't happen often in WWE, but if there was an opportunity to properly execute one, Sunday night was it.

Regardless of the roles Strowman or Reigns plays moving forward, this was one of the highlights of Great Balls of Fire.

Banks, Bliss had a great showing

Although the match did not have a definitive ending, I thought Banks and Bliss had a great showing Sunday night.

Bliss has been a great character, but she has yet to have a standout performance in a big match. She finally got one at Great Balls of Fire and it should come as no surprise that it came with Banks, who always seems to knock it out of the park when given the opportunity.

The count-out finish obviously leaves the door open for more between the two. The only question is will WWE wait until SummerSlam or will it go in a different direction before then? Time will tell.

Tag title match was 30 minutes of fun

Another match that delivered on this card was the tag title match between Sheamus/Cesaro and The Hardy Boyz.

I thought the match was properly built over the course of 30 minutes and came to an exciting climax when it was all said and done.

At one point, Sheamus and Cesaro held a 3-1 lead over the challengers, but if anyone were to ask the Golden State Warriors, they would tell you that a 3-1 lead is not all that easy to hang on to.

As expected, Sheamus and Cesaro let the lead slip and looked to be the authors of a full-fledged collapse when Jeff Hardy hit the swanton bomb on Sheamus.

However, Cesaro was actually the legal man and pinned Jeff Hardy with about 30 seconds left.

Cesaro then played wrestling's version of the prevent defense just long enough for he and Sheamus to retain the titles.

Jeff Hardy was able to hit Cesaro with the twist of fate, but time ticked off the clock as he went for the pin

Vaughn Johnson has a podcast with Nick Piccone called the Straight Shooters on WildfireRadio.com. Check it out here HERE.