#3 Saying ‘Great Balls of Fire’ really ruins a superstar’s promo
Ever since the announcement that RAW’s next PPV will be titled ‘Great Balls of Fire’, the internet has been awash with memes, critical comments and general mockery. To be fair, it is a fairly absurd name for a show. Whether it is simply a reference to the popular rock n’ roll song of the same name or a sly attempt at injecting some lightheartedness into WWE’s calendar of shows, it’ll probably end up making us chuckle every time we hear it.
One thing fans hadn’t quite accounted for, however, was how the PPV name was going to sound when a superstar had to say it out loud, especially in the middle of a serious talking segment. This week, while Samoa Joe was doing an excellent job of talking up his upcoming bout with Brock Lesnar, he got to the point of the script in which we had to utter the name ‘Great Balls of Fire’, and I, for one, felt like the atmosphere took a bit of an unexpected turn.
It’s hard to take anyone seriously who stands in the ring, with full sincerity, and says something like ‘I’m going to end their career.... at Great Balls of Fire’, or ‘I will finally get my hands on so-and-so... at Great Balls of Fire’. I’m not sure whose job it was to come up with a marketable name for the event, but I do wonder whether they really thought it through.
This is the WWE, after all, and for all their faults, they still know the basics of TV advertising. So expect the PPV name ‘Great Balls of Fire’ to be mentioned a fair few times by the commentators and superstars before the actual show reaches the WWE network.
