Night Of Champions has become an important part of the WWE PPV calendar, although it’s not considered amongst the big four PPV’s: Wrestlemania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series and Royal Rumble. However, the fact that all the active Championships are on the line bring tremendous prestige to the event. With that being said, this year’s event was based solely on the main event between Brock Lesnar and John Cena.
Matches and results
With all the titles being on the line, the PPV started off with the Tag Titles where we saw the Uso’s lose their Championship to Golddust and Stardust in a solid match. Next up, the US Championship was successfully defended by Sheamus against Cesaro in what was one of the best matches of the night. Next, Dolph Ziggler would defeat The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship in a decently wrestled match, partly ruined by all the outside shenanigans from their stunt doubles Damien Mizdow and R-Ziggler along with Florida Georgia Line joining Michale Cole, JBL and Jerry Lawler to make an overcrowded announce team.
The next match was a non-title match between Mark Henry and the undefeated Rusev in a proverbial Russia vs. USA matchup. It was unfortunately a slow and plodding match which is often the case between two big men which Rusev won to maintain his undefeated streak. Another non-title match would follow the event with Chris Jericho taking on Randy Orton, a match between two established wrestlers that received very little build from a storyline perspective. However as expected, the match was a very good effort from both men. This also happened to be Jericho’s swansong for his current run with WWE. The Divas Championship would next be successfully defended by Paige against AJ and Nikki Bella in an above average divas match.
This would lead us to the main event between Cena and Lesnar. The match was less one sided than their previous match and Cena almost won after the fourth Attitude Adjustment. But a Seth Rollins interference and a failed attempt at cashing in the Money In The Bank briefcase resulted with the match ending on a whimper with the disqualification.
Match Quality
All the matches pretty much delivered what was expected. There were a few highlights such as Stardust slapping Jey Uso with his glove, Mark Henry crying during the US National Anthem before his match with Rusev and Brock Lesners emphatic kickout at just 1 after the first AA by Cena. However, the lacklustre build to most of the matches along with some poor booking, especially in the main event made the PPV an average one.
Overall Rating
The idea is to have a show that can focus on all the championships in this PPV with all the feuds leading up to this being the catalyst. However WWE failed to do so from the get go and even had some of the non-title matches such as Rusev vs Mark Henry getting a lot of focus in the lead up. Cena showed no glimpses of any darkness in his character during his match with Lesnar, an angle Paul Heyman constantly played up in their build up. Therefore, even with a solid line up and good matches, the event was a bit of a let down.
Rating: 6 out of 10