WWE Live from Madison Square Garden results and observations
If you were looking for an event full of memorable happenings, WWE's live special from Madison Square Garden in New York was not the event for you.
If you were looking for an entertaining way to spend two-and-a-half hours on a Saturday night, get a rare appearance from Brock Lesnar, and an even more rare glimpse at the world's most famous arena, then this show left you satisfied.
The expectations for this event should have been very high going in. It was, after all, just another untelevised live event on the schedule until a few weeks when the WWE decided to put Lesnar on the card and televise it on the WWE Network.
With that being the case, the show the feel of your typical WWE live event. The majority of the matches were won by babyfaces and John Cena closed the show with yet another victory.
While the first three matches lacked any real consequence, the final four provided some real entertainment value despite the fact that none of the outcomes changed anything in the grand scheme of things.
The main attraction was Lesnar going up against Big Show in the rekindling of a rivalry WWE made feel epic, even though it really wasn't.
The match was what you would expect — Big Show reminded everyone that he is indeed a giant by manhandling Lesnar, only for Lesnar to shrug off Big Show's offense and counter with multiple German suplexes and eventually an F5.
After Lesnar won the match, he went to the backstage area, but decided to come back to deliver a belly-to-belly suplex and one more F5 for Big Show's troubles.
The most interesting part of all of this was the send off of sorts Big Show received. It certainly looked like it was a bit of a swan song for the veteran. If so, he went out on the biggest stage possible in Madison Square Garden.
In the final match of the event, Cena defeated Seth Rollins to retain his United States title after a very entertaining steel cage match.
The WWE used the cage to help further the story between Rollins and Kane, which led to Kane destroying Rollins after the match.
Although it would have been a storybook outcome for the Dudley Boyz to win their 10th WWE Tag Team titles in their hometown of New York, it was not to be, as the New Day escaped once again with their titles after getting themselves disqualified.
The Dudley Boyz sent the New York fans home happy by putting Xavier Woods through a table.
Another entertaining match was between Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho for Owens' Intercontinental championship. Owens retained after using a thumb to the eye to roll up Jericho for the win.
Overall, the show was fine for what it was. It was an extra piece of original content that us wrestling are getting for the low price of $9.99, and there shouldn't be much for fans to complain about here.
- Randy Orton & Dolph Ziggler def. Rusev & Sheamus
- Neville def. Stardust
- Team Bella def. PCB
- WWE Intercontinental championship – Kevin Owens def. Chris Jericho
- WWE Tag Team championship – Dudley Boyz def. The New Day via disqualification
- Brock Lesnar def. Big Show
- WWE United States championship (Steel cage) – John Cena def. Seth Rollins