WWE Taipei live results: AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan vs. Miz

Submitted by Andrew Williams

– The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) w/ Big E defeated Cesaro & Sheamus

Kingston and Woods won with their tag team finisher where they do a backbreaker hold/jump off the top rope combo. New Day were really popular with the crowd, but at first it seemed like the fans weren’t sure what to do. They would react to the big stuff but were quieter in between moves.

– Sin Cara defeated Hideo Itami

The audiene wanted to get behind Itami at first, but he got them booing him with some simple heel work like giving the thumbs down. There were a few people, who sounded like they may have been Japanese women, in the crowd shouting “KENTA” though.

–  Shinsuke Nakamura came out to apologise for not being able to compete. He got a huge reaction. Samoa Joe then entered to demand Nakamura’s title shot. Nakamura got a big pop for telling him that he didn’t speak English in Chinese.

Nakamura went for a low blow, but Joe avoided it. AJ Styles made the save for Nakamura and challenged Joe to a match later on in the night. 

– Asuka, Becky Lynch & Naomi defeated Carmella, Peyton Royce & Lana

Asuka made Lana tap out to the Asuka Lock. Asuka was one of the most popular wrestlers of the night and they built the whole match around trying to get her in for the hot tag.

– Daniel Bryan defeated The Miz

Bryan connected with the running knee for the finish. This match had the hottest reactions of the night. It was very shtick heavy with them spending a lot of time getting the crowd to chant “Yes” or “No” in response. Bryan would ask if he should punch Miz in the face and we’d chant “Yes,” then Miz would ask if he should punch Bryan in the face and we’d chant “No.”

It was a decent match once it got going. Bryan managed to hit all of his “Yes” kicks at one point.

– Shelton Benjamin defeated Tye Dillinger

Benjamin got the pin while grabbing the ropes on a roll-up. This was a comedy warm-up match after the intermission, with Dillinger and his “10” chant still being popular here.

The match revolved around Benjamin throwing Dillinger out of the ring and getting annoyed with the crowd for drowning out the referee’s count with 10 chants, then throwing him out again when he got back in. Benjamin got major boos for refusing to throw Dillinger back out the third time, along with “One more time” chants.

– SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Bludgeon Brothers defeated The Usos, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, and Rusev & Aiden English to retain their titles

All three challenging teams were very popular and got competing chants. The match started with a lot of blind tags before The Usos settled in as working as a pair of babyfaces in peril.

Eventually, it broke down into everyone hitting a kick on someone else to send them out of the ring and The Bludgeon Brothers were able to pin one of the Usos to retain.

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

This was probably the best Styles match I’ve seen this year, but I don’t know how much that’s saying. It was very good and the crowd was split pretty evenly between them. The finish came when Styles was able to wriggle out of the Muscle Buster by grabbing onto the ropes and immediately countered into the Phenomenal Forearm.

Styles came around to high five everyone after the match to send the crowd home happy.