Another Live ROH & WWE New York City Live Report

Credit: Zach Levine & PWInsider

I went to both the ROH and WWE shows tonight, wanted to send along a live report from each if that is okay to compliment what you already have on the site.

My friends and I had a blast on Saturday as we planned a double header wrestling day, with ROH at Hammerstein and WWE at the Garden. Both were great shows, unique in their own ways.

Starting with ROH, the first match was Kyle O'Reilly and Adam Cole vs Michael Elgin and Mike Mondo. Mondo was a surprise and looked much leaner and tougher than his Spirit Squad days. Elgin is a beast and has a chance to be big in the years to come. He busted out a great Samoan Drop/Fallaway Slam combo. Cole and O'Reilly are working their tails off, and though not as entertaining and smooth as their last performance versus ANX, the two put on a great show here.

They were followed by Grizzly vs Tomas, which was kind of a dud in all honesty. It is kinda tough to buy Grizz as a singles star versus a guy the size of Tomas, and the match should not have been as competitive. Still always a pleasure to see Nana though, and I hope this leads to big things for the Embassy.

Following this match was Corino vs Bennett. It is amazing the turn that Corino has had in the past few months. I remember booing the hell out of him in September during the double chain match, and here the entire crowd was behind him. Solid match and great job by Corino, looking forward to seeing how this gimmick progresses.

Next up was Briscoes vs ANX. I have been to the last four ROH shows at Hammerstein and have seen these teams battle three separate times on those cards. ANX is one of the most improved teams I have seen in a long time, and Briscoes were their usual solid selves. It was funny, as once the Briscoes came out, people thought they had a much darker air about them, and it showed post match. Once ANX got the win, they had a great double turn, and the crowd became fully behind ANX. Real physical brawl, and looked like this was the stiffest match of the night.

Following intermission we got TJ Perkins vs El Generico. TJ had a great match vs Colt back in December, and this match was just as good. These two mesh real well together, and if you wanted a fun match with some great technical moves, this was the match to see. Great effort put forth by TJ, and I hope ROH makes him more of a regular star on these shows.

Next was KOW vs LAX. KOW are over huge, it has to be said. In the last four Hammerstein shows, they have fought Motor City, WGTT, Briscoes and now LAX. That is a murderers row of tag teams, and they have had awesome matches versus each team. It is a travesty these two can not be seen on national television every week. Now with LAX, I was expecting the crowd to be hostile towards Hernandez, but they were quickly quieted by him once he held Claudio in a suplex for over a minute. Super impressive. Bit of a scary spot midway through when Hernandez border tossed Homicide over the ringpost onto KOW, as Hernandez overshot KOW a bit, but Claudio did catch him and save Homicide. Again, hell of a match, and KOW are def the best tag team today.

This was followed with Davey vs Daniels. Cool concept with pure rules, the two worked real well together. It was a great match... but that ending was one of the scariest things I have ever seen as a wrestling fan. Davey somehow rotated too soon or didn't get enough air, and came down on the ropes right next to the ringpost. It could have been much worse, but the two of them seemed like they quickly called an audible and had Davey roll up Daniels for the win. Glad he's okay, and the fans were super respectful here to both.

Last was the awesome Edwards-Strong battle. Now if someone asked me to put money on this, I would have bet my savings on Strong winning. This wasn't an iPPV, this was Edwards first crack at the belt, and most assumed Richards would win it and go on to face Edwards in June in NYC. So kudos to ROH for the surprise switch. The crowd was genuinely surprised, and I think the pop for the win was louder than the one for when Homicide returned in Sept. The only issue here was that the WWE show began right after, and it seemed like many people at ROH rushed off midway through the match to catch WWE, so the crowd wasn't as big for the change. Great job to both men though, and congrats to Eddie!

Alright so right after ROH ends, we all sprinted to MSG, got into our section and heard Orton's music. We thought we missed the entire show and only caught the main event, but nice fans around us corrected us. Good short match with Orton and Miz, even though we thought it was a 2 out of 3 falls. Ending made sense with Punk coming in, and fans were really behind Orton and hating on Miz.

They were followed by a solid six person tag with Ryder, Primo and Kidd vs Santino Kozlov and Bourne. Crowd was hot for Ryder and Bourne, and of course everyone loves Santino. Always funny to watch kids around the arena explain to their parents how to do the Cobra.

Next was Riley vs Khali. The less said about this the better, but Riley is a great talker and has a bright future ahead of him. Funny moment pre-match as he prayed in the corner for a minute, then turned around right into the brain chop and tree slam. He said he'll fight on Monday for his job back, we'll see if that was just a gimmick for the house show or not

This was followed by the divas match with the surprise of Sunny as guest ref. Let me tell you by the way, her entrance video is not PG by any means! Fun match though and most of the audience got a kick out of Sunny. She beat up the Bellas a bit post match, but if I recall her only real move in ECW was a stunner, so here she just kinda pushed them both down, nothing too major.

R-Truth dancing was next. As a native New Jerseyan, the contest hurt haha, but when is an old guy dancing never funny? He won easily and got four tix to Survivor Series

Bryan vs Dibiase followed intermission. Solid match with a slow intro, probably because most people still were getting back from concessions. Big fan of Bryan, and he pulled out all the stops here. Both looked good and should be stars in the coming years if pushed correctly.

Sheamus vs Triple H was alright. Trips doesn't have much ring rust, so this should bode well for his Mania bout. The two gelled well together, and though it plodded along at points, this match def pleased fans.

My 15th match of the night was Cena and Orton vs Miz and Punk. Punk was hilarious during this, as he sang and danced to Cena's theme, and mocked the fans around ringside. Real good crisp match, and all four worked their tails off. Could easily see this match being on RAW this week.

Overall, hell of a day. Only complaint for ROH is the undercard, and only complaint for WWE is that faces won every match on the show. Thanks for reading and keep supporting this great site!

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