3/5 WWE in New York City at MSG results: Lesnar against mystery opponent, Roman Reigns defends against Seth, Becky vs. Ripley vs. Belair, Balor vs. Priest, more

WWE LIVE EVENT REPORT
MARCH 5, 2022
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
REPORT BY MIKE OMANSKY, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

Crowd estimate: Big crowd – estimate 13,000-14,000 range; a few empty upper sections, rest of the place packed.

Return date: Not announced

(1) Alpha Academy beat Randy Orton & Riddle to retain the Raw Tag Titles. Excellent action as you’d expect. From these four. Finish: Orton tossed out of the ring, Otis pins Riddle after a big splash off of the tope rope. (**½)

(2) Finn Balor beat Damian Priest via DQ to retain the U.S. Title. Not much reaction for Priest coming in. Good match. Finish: Balor misses a dive off of the top ropes; gets up and Priest kicks him with a low blow for the DQ. (*½)

(3) The Usos beat Big E & Kofi Kingston to retain the Smackdown Tag Team Titles. Usual match with these four. Crowd was into New Day chants. For the finish, Big E was tossed from the ring, then Usos double-teamed Kofi. Jimmy then pinned Kofi. (**)

(4) Becky Lynch beat Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair to retain the Raw Title. Lynch was out of the ring for half of the match. Good back and forth between Ripley and Belair. For the finish, Belair slammed Ripley, then Lynch threw her out of the ring and then covered Ripley for the pin. (**)

(5) Roman Reigns (w/Paul Heyman) beat Seth Rollins in 4:00 with a chokeout submission to retain the Universal Title. Reigns attacked Rollins during the introductions. Rollins tried to recover with some moves, but fell to two spears and a choke-out. Pretty one-sided. (**)

Miz TV: Kevin Owens was Miz’s guest. Owens played babyface. They argued about New York City (Miz doesn’t like the people, Owens does). They then argued about Logan Paul being Miz’s tag partner at WrestleMania. Owens tried to remember what Paul did at last year’s WrestleMania. He then did, so he gave Miz a stunner to end the segment.

(6) Drew McIntyre squashed Sami Zayn in about 3:00. Zayn came out first and said he should be the IC Champion. Since there was no one to interfere in his match, he was issuing an open challenge. McIntyre came out. Sami ran from him for a minute out of the ring, but it was a Claymore kick and pin pretty quickly for the win.

(7) Ronda Rousey & Naomi defeated Charlotte Flair & Sonya Deville when Rousey made Charlotte tap out to her armbar. Standard formula. Naomi started out well, then got double-teamed and was unable to tag. Finally she made the hot tag. Rousey first beat down Sonya, who tagged to Charlotte. Rowsey dominated Charlotte, and clamped on the arm bar for submission. (**½)

(8) Brock Lesnar beat Austin Theory in 1:35. Lesnar came out first. Paul Heyma was standing in the back and talked about Reigns and ow Lesnar might not make it as champion after tonight Austin Theory came out. He said, “Paul, I’ll take it from here.” Theory went to the ring, started insulting Lesnar. Lesnar laughed, grabbed the mic, and said he’d take him to Suplex City. He pretty much did – a one-sided beat-down. A bunch of suplexes, an F-5, and pin. After the match, Reigns came out to attack Lesnar, who ultimately recovered and hit back.

FINAL NOTES: There were TV cameras around the ring for the last two matches. Excellent show overall. The heavy promotion by WWE did draw a big crowd.