12/30 WWE in Albany, N.Y. (2nd report): Crowd reactions for Cena and Reigns, Woken Matt vs. Bray, Enzo, Rhyno, Asuka, Goldust, The Bar, Revival

WWE LIVE EVENT REPORT
DECEMBER 30, 2017
ALBANY, N.Y.
REPORT BY ROBERT QUATTROCCHI, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

Great show, seems to be the same card they’re running for the Raw circuit.

(1) Rhyno & Heath Slater & Titus O’Neil & Apollo Crews & Goldust beat Curtis Axel & Bo Dallas & The Revival & Curt Hawkins. Rhyno won with the Gore for his team. Good warm up for the show but the crowd wasn’t hot yet.

(2) Enzo defeated Kalisto to retain the Cruiserweight Title. Enzo came out to a big pop. He got on the mic and worked the New York angle then turned it on the crowd and ran down Albany. He got booed for it, but the crowd still chanted along for the S-A-W-F-T, after which Enzo ran the crowd down again. Kalisto got a good pop and worked the crowd pretty well, Enzo won with a roll up and grab of the tights.

(3) Bayley & Sasha Banks beat Sonya Deville & Mandy Rose. Sasha and Mandy got the best pops here. Sonya got little reaction. The crowd chanted for Mandy for a bit and she ate it up. Deville tapped out to Sasha’s bank statement.

(4) Matt Hardy beat Bray Wyatt. Bray came out to a good reaction. The crowd was firmly behind the “delete” chant as well. Hardy won with the pin.

Elias came out for a segment. He ran Albany down and sang, then invited Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson out to join him. All three men got good reactions and Gallows and Anderson got a lot of boos by singing their own names over and over. Kane came out and sang “She’ll be coming round the mountain” with Elias, then got Elias with the chokeslam and the Good Brothers with the double chokeslam

(6) Jason Jordan & Seth Rollins beat The Bar in a cage match to retain the WWE Raw Tag Team Titles. This was a steel cage match that was unadvertised for us so most of the audience was pleasantly surprised by it. Rollins might have gotten the loudest reaction of the night. Jason Jordan absolutely got the loudest boos of the night. Highlight of the match was Rollins making it out of the cage then later reentering by jumping off the cage onto Sheamus and Ceasaro. The arena gave the biggest pop of the night when Rollins and Jordan won. Everyone was really hot for this match.

(7) Asuka & Dana Brooke beat Alexa Bliss & Nia Jax. Alexa got the best reaction out of the four. The crowd was pretty flat for this one. It was after an intermission and it seemed like the crowd wasn’t recovered from the cage match, so the crowd didn’t really seem that engaged. Alexa tapped out to Asuka’s arm bar.

(8) Samoa Joe beat Finn Balor. Balor came out to another huge reaction, on par with Rollins’s earlier in the night. Finn cut a short promo and was cut off by Samoa Joe. Joe got a great reaction, too. The match was excellent with a lot of back and forth. Joe won with the coquina clutch and left Balor in the ring. Balor got another round of applause from the crowd when he left the ring.

(9) Roman Reigns beat John Cena to retain the Intercontinental Title. Both men got good reactions. John got the usual “John Cena sucks” sing along. Roman got a mixed to positive reaction. There were little pockets of negative chants for both men during the match, but honestly both men were received mostly positively. After several finisher attempts and reversals Reigns won with the spear.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This was a fun show. I paid $59 for row F of section 121 in the Times Union Center. We waited to buy our tickets the day of and got better seats at a cheaper price than what Ticketmaster had been advertising so I was very pleased. Area was probably about two-thirds full, with a pretty good cross-section of attendees from all age groups.

Rollins and Balor are definitely the most over faces. Elias and Joe got the best reactions for heels. Jason Jordan got the loudest boos by far, so if WWE ever turns him full heel then he’ll be real money. Among the women Sasha, Alexa, and Mandy got the best reactions. I think the response for Mandy may have been because a lot of people seemed to know that she’s from New York.)

Conspicuous by his absence was Braun Strowman, a lot of people in my section were chanting for him. We were expecting him to come out either during the Elias-Kane segment or the main event. A lot of people seemed disappointed that he wasn’t there, myself included.

Excellent show overall, really had a good time and look forward to the next time WWE is in town.

If you attend a live event for any pro wrestling event, please send a report like the one above to pwtorch@pwtorch.com.