Review: WWE Night of Champions

It’s WWE Night of Champions where all 7 titles are up for grabs. I’ve not been following Smackdown, but for the Raw titles, I wanted Danielson to make the Miz tap like a baby and I wanted Wade Barrett to take home the gold.

Let’s do this.

Match one: Intercontinental Championship. Dolph Ziggler versus Kofi Kingstone

As you’d expect this was a solid match, they went through each other’s move set. There was no shenanigans, it was pretty much a clean win with Ziggler getting the Zig Zag. Every time I see Ziggler, he looks more and more like Jeff Jarrett, I keep expecting him to come down to the ring with guitar in hand.
Match rating: ***

Match two: Big Show versus CM Punk

I’m a big fan of CM Punk; the guy is awesome on the mic and amazing in the ring. It has to be said that I’m not a big enough fan to watch Smackdown though. Bring him over to Raw so he can feud with Cena or something. Anyway, this was the second match of Night of Champions, but for some reason it wasn’t a title match. Very bizarre. Before the match Punk came down to the ring and got a real hometown pop from the crowd. Punk did an “I love Chicago” bit then started laying into its residents – this was brilliant.
Luckily this was a pretty short match, it was also pretty dull. Big Show did his usual ‘giant’ thing and tackled Punk to give him his ‘Big Right Hand’. I always thought that a closed fist was grounds for a DQ in wrestling, but I suppose if it has a name then that’s okay... hmm...
Match rating: **

Match three: US title. Bryan Danielson versus the Miz

This match was great. Perfect length, fast-paced, some great submissions, great drama. Miz lost by tapping out and cried like a bitch at the end. I can’t emphasise how much I enjoyed this match and was genuinely happy to see Danielson get the title after all the bullshit of Chokegate (it’s a controversy, you have to put gate at the end, so shut the fuck up). I’m sure this will make it into my top ten matches of the year.
Match rating: ****½

Between the matches there was a great promo by Cena where he seemed to be taking the piss out of all the percentage talk you get on these kind of matches. Just watch it on YouTube if you’ve not seen it.

Match four: Divas... Lumberjills?

Match five: World Heavyweight Championship. Undertaker versus Kane.

This match went on for nearly 20 minutes and bored the hell out of me. Two big, slow guys (one who can barely walk these days); trying to recapture something that had gotten old over a decade ago. Pointless match, which was really painful to watch. I felt really sorry for Taker watching this; he’s just past it now and he’s clearly hurting. They both worked really hard, but it just didn’t feel good.
Kane retained the title, woo.
Match rating: *½

Match six: Tag titles: tag team turmoil.

This was basically a gauntlet match between pretty much all of the tag teams, including, erm, Mark Henry and Evan Bourne. This match was a waste of time, it was dull as hell.
Match rating: *

Match seven: Six pack challenge.

This was a mixed bag. Going into this match I thought that Wade Barrett would be next champion. Even though Randy Orton had been given a massive babyface push over the past few months, I thought him winning would be far too obvious... it was. This being said, there were some surprises: Jericho got eliminated with about a minute, Barrett eliminated Cena, Cena went mental on the Nexus guys with a steel chair. But, unsurprisingly, Orton got the win with the, you guessed it, the RKO. Eugh, I really can’t stand the “if he hits that move, it’s all over” approach, and I really don’t get what people see in Orton.
So with Orton the new champ, I was waiting for the Miz to cash in the Money in the Bank case... didn’t happen. I’m sure it will happen at Hell in a Cell when Orton/Sheamus will no doubt have a rematch... but Miz will lose.
Match rating: ***

Overall this was a solid PPV, there were a few surprises, but nothing major. The Miz and Danielson match was by far the highlight.

PPV rating: ***½