Kingston retains WWE title in Manila

MANILA — Kofi Kingston survived a devastating barrage of kicks by challenger Daniel Bryan to retain his WWE Smackdown title belt to a roaring Smart Araneta Coliseum crowd last Friday, September 20.

Kingston was literally on the ropes when Bryan, a multi-titled winner in his own right, rammed the former’s shoulder in to the corner ring post. Bryan stepped up his challenge with multiple kicks to the chest and head. On Bryan’s third running kick, Kingston pulled out at the last second and summoned the last amount of strength he had for his finishing move, Trouble in Paradise, a thunderous kick to the head that laid out the challenger.

The Ghanaian-American Kingston wasn’t the only one to retain their title belt on Friday night. 

Japanese whirlwind Shinsuke Nakamura was also pushed to the limit by Ali before retaining his Intercontinental title. Nakamura seemed to have taken Ali lightly as the latter dominated portions of the match despite constant interference from the Japanese star’s buddy, Sammy Zayn. 

Nakamura got the three-count off a Kinshasa that leveled Ali in what was arguably the best match of the night. 

Feeling good with himself and looking to make it two-for-two for the night, Zayn called out any wrestler in the WWE’s locker room for a fight. Much to his dismay and surprise, the 6’3” Roman Reigns answered the challenge. It took Nakamura’s interference to make a fight out of it, but the hulking Reigns speared Zayn to win the match.

Women’s Champion Bayley defeated Charlotte Flair in a Streetfight match. Despite refusing to engage in a table match, Bayley made use of chairs and a kendo stick to try and inflict damage on Flair who dominated most of the match. Bayley got the pinfall when she rammed the daughter of “Nature Boy” Ric Flair into a steel chair.

Flair got the last word in when post-match action, she threw Bayley twice on to a table that refused to break. 

In tag team action, the duo of Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder, known as the Revival, defeated former champions the New Day after the former stunned the Big E when he knocked him into an exposed turnbuckle. 

Despite the largely pro-New Day crowd at the Big Dome, the Revival, held on to the belts for the seventh consecutive month since taking the title belts from Bobby Roode and Chad Gable.

In other matches, crowd favorite Kevin Owens used a stunner on Andrade for the night’s first victory.

Carmella defeated Mandy Rose despite the constant meddling of Sonya Deville, and Chad Gable forced EC3 to submit via an ankle lock.

As Gable celebrated the win with special ringside announcer R-Truth, who held up the former’s arm in victory, EC3 sneaked up on the latter for a pin that awarded him the 24/7 title belt that R-Truth held. To atone for his not being to watch R-Truth’s back, Gable hunted down EC3 and bundled him into the ring for R-Truth to pin thus giving back the belt to the fan favorite.

Thousands of fans packed the Smart Araneta Coliseum for the WWE event.The last time the WWE was in Manila was in June of 2016.