Night of Champions Review

The Kickoff show for this Pay-Per-View actually featured a match I was pretty interested in. The Cosmic Wasteland of Stardust and the Ascension faced Neville and the Lucha Dragons. I thought that this was a great choice for the Kickoff show. It allowed for the Cosmic Wasteland to get some shine together and they worked a really fun match. There was a spot where the three faces all did dives outside at the same time, which was a really cool visual. I expected the faces to take it, but was more than happy to see the Cosmic Wasteland win. There is potential for them to be a really fun midcard heel stable. This was fun and didn't overstay its welcome. ***

            Our actual Pay-Per-View broadcast began with the Intercontinental Title match. Ryback and Kevin Owens have had a pretty nice little feud and I'm glad they haven't wrestled a ton coming into this. I was wondering how their styles would work and I liked what they went out and did. Owens went after the arm and continued to target it throughout. It was solid stuff and I give props to Ryback for selling it well, especially since he's someone who doesn't have to sell like this very often. Ryback was unable to hit the Shell Shock because of the arm work, allowing Owens to roll him up. Fine match and the finish allows for a rematch down the line. Perfectly acceptable and the crowd was red hot for Owens. **3/4

They announced that October will basically be Brock month as he'll be on the MSG show, on Austin's podcast and will main event Hell in a Cell against Undertaker. Meh. Up next, the saga between Dolph Ziggler and Rusev continued. Dolph's attire makes him the anti-Rick Rude because he has Lana's face on his crotch. See what I mean about him coming off as the heel in this? He just throws thing in Rusev's face. They worked at a lesser clip than their normal match. This went too long and the finish came as Summer threw her shoe in the ring, hitting Rusev and it led to the Zig Zag. Disappointing for sure as this ridiculous feud will continue. *3/4

              The New Day came out to cut a promo on saving the tables and were great as always. The match that they worked with the Dudley Boyz was okay but left a lot to be desired. It seemed like they knew this was going to be extended until next month and kind of went through the motions here. The best thing about this match was Xavier Woods and his ringside antics. He would cause the finish as he ran to cause a blatant disqualification. New Day went to use a table after the match, forgoing their #SaveTheTables trend, but the Dudleys turned it around and put Woods through one. Decent at best. **1/2

The video package they used to hype Nikki Bella's title run was much better than the actual run itself. Outside of a match with Paige on Main Event at the start of the year, this was probably the best match of her run. Charlotte tweaked her knee early and Nikki worked that well. It was better than when Nikki works the arm just because it's there as this actually had reasoning behind it. She dominated for a fair amount until Charlotte hit a spear from out of nowhere and won with the figure eight. This was solid but the crowd wasn't into it. I think part of that had to do with what happened on Monday. Not stopping the record from being broken took away from this actual win. Also, I was never part of the group that felt they only had NIkki break the record for spite AJ, but having her break it only to lose it instantly after kind of seems like that was why they did it. ***

Recently on Raw, a fan got next to Seth Rollins and security failed hard again on this show. A random fan got right next to Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns.That is not good at all. Anyway, the mystery partner turned out to be Chris Jericho. I don't think he is who I'd choose to combat a monster like Braun Strowman. The match that they actually worked was one of the better ones of the night. They did everything they should have. Ambrose and Reigns finally got Strowman down and as Reigns set for the spear, Jericho tagged himself in and ended up losing. The right guy took the loss here. After the match, Jericho shoved his partners and left, making for something somewhat interesting. Jericho is always much better as a heel. The crowd was into it, they did solid work and it was probably the best thing so far. ***1/4

Seth Rollins was set to work back to back matches, facing John Cena for the United States Title here first. They worked a very similar match to their SummerSlam encounter, though I feel like this wasn't as good. Granted, it was better than their late 2014 stuff. Rollins was, like SummerSlam, on a whole different level. Not taking anything away from Cena though, who was on his game too as even his usual offense that looks clunky, looked pretty good. He regained the US Title following an AA. I don't mind him having the belt again because his title run was fun but why did Seth even become a double champion if it was just going to be for one month? Anyway, solid match but not MOTY candidate level for me. ***1/2

Seth Rollins tried to bail but John Cena stopped him and hit another AA on him outside. Cena can be such a dick right? Sting came out and tried to capitalize, but Seth escaped his grasp. They fought outside and Sting took a table bump, which looked pretty rough. Sting gets a ton of credit here as he also jumped from the top rope to the outside. He was really doing his best here. Near the end, Sting took a buckle bomb and got hurt, causing a lull as officials checked on him. They went to the finish, where Seth countered a Scorpio Death Lock into a small package and retained. Solid work here and I bump the score up due to Sting's effort. ***

After the match, Sheamus came out to cash in and hit Seth Rollins with a Brogue Kick. Kane then returns, in a mask, and chokeslams both Seth and Sheamus, before hitting Seth with a tombstone. So in 2015, we're ending PPVs with Kane. Yup. I guess we get Seth/Kane next month and hopefully that ends with a clean Seth win after just one match. Overall, I came out of this show thinking it wasn't very good but looking back, the matches were, for the most part, pretty good. Some of the finishes and booking decisions were a bit questionable though. Seth was the MVP of the show again and it gets an average score, like most WWE PPVs in 2015. 6/10.