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ROLLINS VS. OWENS NO HOLDS BARRED, ANDRADE VS. REY, WOMEN'S CAGE MATCH, TITLE CHANGES & MORE: 12/26 WWE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN LIVE REPORT

World Wrestling Entertainment held their final event of the decade in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Thursday 12/26, the latest edition of their decades-long tradition of a day after Christmas live event.  The Raw brand event, billed as part of the WWE Holiday Touyr, featured four title changes, including one that was meant to be a substantial moment with Andrade defeating Rey Mysterio for the United States Championship.  WWE also played hot potato with the 24/7 title and followed up on several storylines from this past week’s episode of Monday Night Raw.

*WWE Raw Tag Team Champions The War Raiders defeated The Street Profits (making their MSG debut) and The O.C.’s Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson.  The Profits came out to a big reaction for their high energy entrance and even went in the crowd to play to the fans.  This was a good opener with lots of near falls.  Montez Ford hit a big dive to the outside.  In the end, the Raiders hit their finisher on Anderson for the pin.

*Drew McIntyre pinned No Way Jose in a short match after the Claymore Kick.  McIntyre sold a bit for Jose early before taking his aggressions out on Jose.  McIntyre showed some funny heel charisma as well including mocking Jose’s mannerisms.  This was a good squash match.

*Andrade pinned Rey Mysterio to win the WWE United States Championship in a great match that was the best thing bell to bell on the show.  Zelina Vega, in her hometown, was in all her glory with an insanely great looking dress and cut a promo before the bout, stating that other than Andrade, Rey is the talent she most respects in the entire WWE, but noted that after the beating he took on Raw, Rey has refused to let WWE doctors look at his neck and demands to compete despite not being cleared.  The mic work set up the title change.  This was legitimately, ridiculously great with all sorts of unique and cool spots, including Rey hitting a sunset flip on the apron outside, sending Andrade crashing back-first into the ringpost.  In the end, Mysterio nailed a 619 and came off the top for a splash but Andrade kicked him in mid-air and nailed the hammerlock DDT.  Mysterio did a promo after, apologizing to the audience for losing, saying that he may not have won, but it meant the world to him to perform in front of the NYC fans.

*Randy Orton pinned AJ Styles after catching Styles preparing for a Phenomenal Forearm, hitting him with an RKO for the pin.  Orton’s entrance took forever, just milking the audience.  They had a long, drawn out match.  Early on, Styles tried to make Orton do the “Too Sweet” deal with the Kill sign.  The O.C. pulled Styles out of the ring and attempted to leave, but the Viking Raiders came out to their music and brawled with the O.C.  Styles returned and attempted the forearm, setting up the finish.  Orton was doing the Kliq sign with fans after.

*Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch defeated Charlotte Flair and WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Asuka in the first-ever women’s steel cage match in MSG history.  Lynch got, by far, the biggest reaction of the night when she came to the ring.   This was your traditional Triple Threat match where two competitors battled as the third was temporarily removed from the proceedings.  No Kairi Sane at ringside.  The rules were there was no escape and there had to be a pinfall or submission.  They worked a fast pace the entire time and it was an entertaining house show match.  Obviously, no blood.  At one point, Flair and Lynch kept rolling around the ring in a large circle, reversing the others' pinfall attempt.  They both came up dizzy with Charlotte whipping out the Flair Flop.  Flair executed a big moonsault at one point, but Lynch and Asuka put their knees up at the same time.  They did the Ric Flair/Sting finish from Great American Bash 1990 as Flair went for the figure eight but Becky small packaged her for the pin.  Becky took a LONG time going around ringside doing selfies with fans and signing after the bout.

After intermission, The Street Profits helped give merchandise to a young fan who was picked as the social media fan of the night.  The kid was so excited, it was really adorable.  A nice new wrinkle for WWE live events.

*WWE 24/7 Champion R-Truth came out to defend his title.  He dedicated the match to his “childhood hero” John Cena (who is younger than Truth) and even did Cena’s Five Knuckle Shuffle.  Truth faced The Singh Brothers in a handicap match.  This was all comedy.  Samir Singh pinned Truth to win the title but was then rolled up and pinned by Harvinder Singh, who became champion.   Truth then rolled up Singh and regained the title so they ended up back where they started in terms of who was champion.  This was what it was. 

*Aleister Black pinned Buddy Murphy after Black Mass.  This was a good match, but not at the level of their TLC PPV bout.  They each had moments where they got in the face of the other, trying to play mind games and they worked a good, physical style.  This was one of the best matches on the show from an in-ring perspective.

*Lana came out and cut a promo about how NYC is all losers and jealous of her.  She went on and on in the most annoying way possibly, getting a lot of reaction for this.  She brought out Lashley and he got on his knee and she acted like he was asking to marry her again and pushed the wedding on Raw.  Seriously, this garnered a ton of heat and Lana was pitch perfect in the role.  This was advertising as a No Holds Barred match against Rusev but Lana claimed she was able to get yet another order of protection barring Rusev from being there.  In a rare case of a heel telling the truth, Rusev never appeared.  Lana said there was no one who could stand up to her Lashley and dared anyone in the back to face him…

*Out came Ricochet, who defeated Lashley with a rollup in a big man vs. little man match. This was fine for what it was and the crowd loved Ricochet’s dives and fakeouts when he teased doing them.

*Seth Rollins pinned Kevin Owens in an entertaining No Holds Barred match to close the show.  Rollins cut a promo pointing out that the last time he was at MSG, he was in the ring with Steve Austin and everyone was cheering him.  Now, half the building was booing.  He said that he wondered what happened and now he knows, the fans changed on him because they are jealous of him.  Owens came out and said what happened was that the fans realized Rollins was a jackass.  They ..Wwent back and forth on whether Seth was a jackass or not and the crowd loved this.  They brawled into the crowd and went around the building before returning to the ringside area.  Owens was really fun here and was channeling Terry Funk, tossing chairs into the ring.  They teased using a table but it never happened until the end of the bout.  Owens had the match won but the AOP came out and attacked him.  Owens was brought back to the ring and hit with a stomp on the flat table and pinned.  The crowd didn’t react well to that.

The AOP and Rollins worked over Owens but Samoa Joe’s music hit and he returned to physicality after being laid out on Raw.  He fought off the AOP, using a Singapore Cane and ended up putting Rollins through a table to close the show, celebrating with Owens.

NOTES: WWE will return to MSG on 3/22/20....They were selling signed photos of Becky Lynch, Randy Orton and  Seth Rollins....The steel cage hung over the ring for the entire event and was lowered with dramatic music before the cage match...They played an audio recording of Lilian Garcia singing the national anthem before the event....They had an inflatable Christmas Tree and an inflatable snowman as part of the entrance as this was billed as a "Holiday Tour" event.

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