WWE Cleveland live results: Styles vs. Joe, Bryan vs. Miz

– SmackDown Tag Team Champions The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) defeated Cesaro & Sheamus to retain their titles

Xavier Woods wasn’t with Big E and Kingston. There were lots of cheers for New Day. They had a good match, but there was a bad botch where Kingston was supposed to run into a double clothesline and fell two feet before getting to where Cesaro and Sheamus would have made contact.

New Day retained by hitting Midnight Hour.

– Naomi defeated Sonya Deville (w/ Mandy Rose)

In a very quick pre-match promo as she was walking to the ring, Deville ripped on Cleveland for LeBron James leaving. She even said it was “too easy.”

Rose’s interference was fought off a few times and Naomi got the pin with the Rear View.

– The Usos defeated SAnitY (Eric Young & Alexander Wolfe) w/ Killian Dain

The Usos were pretty over, but nobody cared about SAnitY at all and the crowd didn’t react much to the match either. The Usos won with a double superkick.

– Rusev & Lana defeated Andrade “Cien” Almas & Zelina Vega

They did lots of crowd work in this one with each team posing before the match to cheers/boos. Almas walked around ringside and found a few signs supporting them and brought them to the ring and held them up in celebration. There were tons of “Rusev Day” chants.

Rusev and Lana won via submission (a double accolade on Almas and Vega).

– United States Champion Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Jeff Hardy to retain his title

Nakamura won with the Kinshasa. This match was short and disappointing to me for what I was expecting. After the match, Hardy gave Nakamura a low blow and then left him laying with a Twist of Fate.

– Daniel Bryan defeated The Miz

Lots of cheers and support for The Miz during his entrance, but he cut a pre-match promo saying he’s the only superstar who gets booed in his hometown. He then ripped on Cleveland for LeBron leaving, the Browns for sucking, and the fact that everyone leaves the city, as he lives in Austin, Texas and hails from Hollywood because Cleveland “is an embarrassment.”

Miz then did a Rick Rude imitation, calling us “fat, lazy, Cleveland sweathogs” and telling us to keep the noise down while he removed his sunglasses. Despite all this, he still had some fans behind him during the match. 

This was probably the best match of the night. They went back and forth, and Bryan got the pin after the flying knee.

– R-Truth defeated Shelton Benjamin

The crowd didn’t have much interest in this. They teased a countout spot three times, twice for R-Truth and once for Benjamin. When Benjamin rolled back in the ring, Truth pinned him with a small package.

After the finish, Benjamin was arguing with the referee about it for a solid two minutes, rolling around on the mat and showing his shoulder was up. The referee eventually just bailed from the ring and hid behind a cameraman to not have to hear any more of it. That was more entertaining than the match itself.

– SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair defeated Carmella by DQ

This was a disorganized mess. The website advertising the show had mentioned a fatal four-way for the SmackDown Women’s Championship with Charlotte vs. Carmella vs. Asuka vs. Becky Lynch. Byron Saxton, the ring announcer for the night, announced the match as a four-way as well. But after Charlotte and Carmella got in the ring, the bell rang and the match started to the crowd’s confusion.

After about two minutes, Lynch ran down to the ring and attacked Charlotte to big cheers, with Asuka coming down to make the save for Charlotte. They challenged each other to a tag match.

– SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair & Asuka defeated Carmella & Becky Lynch

I found the crowd reactions in this very interesting. When Lynch was against Asuka, Charlotte was able to get a big “Asuka” chant going from the apron and the crowd was generally behind Asuka. But when Lynch was against Charlotte, there was not much reaction at all — cheers or boos — for either of them. It was like the fans were unsure how to react.

Charlotte eventually made Carmella submit with the Figure Eight.

– WWE Champion AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe to retain his title

Lots of cheers for Styles and a smaller amount for Joe. The match lasted about 15 minutes, with Styles getting the pinfall with the Phenomenal Forearm. Joe teased the Muscle Buster at one point, but Styles rolled through.

I don’t usually go to house shows and don’t know if this is the norm, but I was very impressed with how friendly all the wrestlers were with the crowd after their matches. They were stopping to sign things, take pictures, etc. Rusev actually stood on the stage and tapped at his wrist as if it were a watch because Lana was taking such a long time with the fans.