CHRIS JERICHO helped Kevin Owens retain his Universal title at the expense of Roman Reigns but the dirty double-act then felt the full force of the Shield after Seth Rollins emerged to helped his old friend smash the dastardly pair through a table each.
Cunning Jericho wrecked Reign’s shot at the WWE title by attacking champion Owens and getting the challenger disqualified but that only angered Rollins, watching back stage after his win over Y2J, who emerged to rekindle their old team and hit each enemy through an announce table.
Kevin Owens vs Roman Reigns – WWE Universal title
Owens, as usual, played the pantomime villain early on by ducking out of the ring before hauling Reigns down with a headlock. But when the champ once again fled the ring, he was grabbed and rammed into the barricade.
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But Owens repaid the favour by hurling the former Shield enforcer into the steel steps at high speed.
Reigns took control and got a near-fall after a super-kick and Samoan drop left Owens vulnerable but his superman punch was reversed and he was instead the victim of a vicious DDT.
Reigns then put the champ on the top rope, looking for a suplex but the prize fighter beat his way out before getting pinged with a superman punch. Reigns then tried another suplex but Owens countered it and drove his rival into the mat.
Owens then tried a serious Senton Bomb but Reigns read it and stuck up his knees in the perfect response before chasing him outside the ring and hitting a drive-by.
Owens regained control with two super-kicks and then hit two giants frog splashes, with the second one destroying the commentary table Reigns was perched on.
The third consecutive splash was off the top rope and into the centre of the ring but the Rock’s cousin survived and retaliated with a powerbomb.
Owens then hit his pop-up powerbomb from nowhere but Reigns managed to get his foot on the bottom rope to negate the pin.
Jericho then ran down into the ring but hit a Code Breaker on Owens to ensure the match was cancelled and Owens retained his title.
But before the gruesome twosome could slink out with their belt, Rollins ran down the ramp and joined forces with Reigns to punish the pair.
Rusev vs Big Cass
Rusev and ravishing Russian wife Lana grabbed a weak win on the WWE kick-off show with another episode in their growing feud with the little-and-large tag-team.
Enzo Amore wasn’t even officially involved in the match but beat the Bulgarian and his wife with words from outside the ring before the bell rang.
Big Cass’ big boot floored the budget Bluto early on before body slamming him and dropping an Empire elbow.
The match was taken out into the crowd before Lana got involved to distract the tag-team and help her husband win by everyone’s favourite method of victory: a count-out.
New Day vs Cesaro & Sheamus – Tag-team titles
Cesaro and Sheamus ended WWE’s record-breaking tag-team reign by beating the New Day just weeks after they become the longest running champs in the company’s history.
The longest reigning tag-team champions in history, New Day, got the main event underway with the longest running introduction of all time to their match.
The trumpet-loving trio demonstrated all their dancing and singing skills before the Swiss and Irish stars broke up the party.
Cesaro almost won the match with his first strike and instant pin but Kofi Kingston kicked out of the shock attack.
The European stars dominated Kingston while powerhouse Big E was restricted to watching from the ring apron.
But the 285-pound beast was tagged in and almost broke Sheamus in half with a spear through the middle rope out to the floor. And inside the ring he followed it up with a running-powerbomb.
Cesaro was not about to let his team be bullied and he soon flattened New Day’s enforced with a flying corkscrew uppercut. And he then gave Kingston the full swing treatment and stepped into a sharpshooter which made him tap but the ref was distracted.
Cesaro then hit a neutraliser on Kingston but Big E broke the pin to keep his belt. Kofi almost got the pin after an S.O.S on Sheamus but after a bout of confusion as to who were the legal men, Cesaro and Sheamus got the pin.
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Sami Zayn vs Braun Strowman – 10-minute match
Sami Zayn survived 10 minutes in and out the ring against the giant Braun Stowman but it looked like a botched match that the little man should have won.
The ending was riddled with ambiguity as it appeared Zayn was about to hit a second Helluva kick and beat the beast but he run out of time and neither David nor Goliath was declared the winner.
Hardcore legend Mick Foley set the ten-minute limit and Zayn just had to stay in the match for that long with getting beaten.
The Canadian tried to dodge the giant, then he tried to swarm him but the match soon descended into a one-sided beat down.
Zayn managed to force the hulk outside the ring where he tried a cross-body dive over the top rope but he was caught in mid-air and rammed spine-first into the ring apron.
Sami lasted four minutes but was facedown into the mat by that point. At the half way point Zayn could barely stand and Strowman was yet to touch the canvas.
Mick Foley almost threw in the towel for Zayn. Then a vicious clothesline sent the NXT hero summersaulting through the air as the match crept into the final four minutes as Foley walked down with a white towel to signal surrender.
But Zayne rallied and goaded Strowman into running headfirst into a ring post and then running through a barricade then he hit a cross body from the top rope before hitting a Helluva kick and lasting the final few seconds.
Seth Rollins vs Jericho
Kevin Owens cost Jericho a surprise win over Seth Rollins when he accidentally distracted the referee from Y2J’s potentially match-winning pin.
The Universal champ was trying to help his pal but he got his timings off and instead let Rollins off the hook before he hit two quick-fire moves on Jericho for a win.
Two of WWE’s best stars threw down in a relatively routine match for their statuses. These two fans’ favourites are headline wrestlers, with Jericho, even at the age of 46, still one of the most popular names in the game.
Jericho rolled back the years with an early missile dropkick from the ropes as he built the match with the former Shield man.
The Bon Jovi lookalike was talking trash throughout the match and using all his ring wisdom to disrupt his opponent’s momentum before a flying knee flattened Y2J.
Six-time world champion, Jericho, tried to win by count-out and submission before hitting a game-changing drop-kick to wreck a Rollins revival.
A slingblade helped Rollins regain control and he stepped it up with a flying neck-breaker and then a suicide dive that stunned Jericho who then rolled the former NXT champ into The Walls. But he reached the ropes.
Rollins went for a high-risk frogsplash that missed the target and was then nailed by a lionsault before Jericho again locked in his trademark submission move.
Kevin Owens then came down to help his best friend but he inadvertently distracted the referee when Jericho had his man pinned for way more than three seconds. Rollins then hit a knee and Pedigree to secure the win.
Rich Swann vs TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick – Cruiserweight championship triple-threat
Rich Swann retained his title but was decimated along with his rivals by vicious returning British superstar Neville.
The high-flying Geordie returned from a devastating double-ankle break to wipe the floor with former friend Swann and lay waste to the most highly-rated men in the division and it’s a shame he didn’t do it sooner.
The match got off to a bad start when the champ botched one of his first moves as he tried to leapfrog Kendrick and instead kneed the former champ in the head.
That early blip was more than made up for once the trio got into their rhythm. And Kendrick almost got his title back with a submission win before Perkins wrapped Kendrick in knee-bar, only for Swann to break it all up with a splash.
The match descended into farce again when Perkins wrapped Swann up in a knee bar again and the champ crawled to the ropes.
The commentary team were bellowing that the match was no DQ, thanks to the triple-threat rules, but the ref made Perkins break. And Swann grabbed a cheap win with a kick before brilliant Newcastle star Neville returned.
Charlotte vs Sasha Banks – Women’s title, 30-minute ironman match
Charlotte reclaimed her women’s title for the fourth time in the stunning career with an over-time win over a blood-soaked Sasha Banks.
Two-time Hall of Famer Ric Flair’s daughter hit two Figure-Eight leg locks, firstly to take the match into added time and then to win by submission after Banks had suffered a seriously busted nose in a clash of heads.
The two women have elevated women’s wrestling to main-event status and out it, in many fans’ eyes, on an even keel with the men’s game.
This long-running feud – with the belt regularly changing hands – has boosted the division and the match was another ideal platform to show their skills, though it had a very slow start.
Eight minutes in the match went up a gear as the champ hit a double-knees attack on Charlotte then she hit a straight-jacket submission on her rival who somehow battled out of the hold without tapping.
Banks then threw caution, and herself, to the wind with a suicide through the second rope that floored Charlotte but, even ten minutes in, neither women looked close to losing or gaining a pin.
That was until Banks was tripped and smashed her face into the steel steps.
But even when Charlotte hit her Natural Selection the three-time champion could not get the first pin on the match as reigning champ Banks kicked out.
But she hit a Natural Selection from the top rope to get her first point with just 10 minutes remaining and leave her opponent dazed.
But Banks stole a pin with a complicated roll-up with just eight minutes remaining to leave things even. But the momentum moved in Banks’ favour when Charlotte attempted a top-flight moonsault that missed and teed up her Bank Statement that Charlotte tapped out of to hand the defending champ a 2-1 lead.
But with two seconds remaining Charlotte locked in her Figure-Eight leg-lock to take the match to a tie. The ref announced the match would to sudden-death overtime.
The brilliant spectacle left the men with a lot to live up to.
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